Science Unit: Sound

Our last Science unit will be about the Physics of Sound.

The children will be looking at the following essential questions:

Investigation 1

• What are the properties of sounds that make them identifiable?
• Can you use the discrimination of sounds to make a code for sending messages?
• How are sounds made?

Investigation 2

• How are high and low sounds made?
• How does length affect the rate of vibration, and therefore the pitch?
• How does tension affect the rate of vibration, and therefore the pitch?

Investigation 3

• Can sounds travel through liquids?
• Can sounds travel through air?
• How is sound different when heard through air or water?
• Can sound travel through solids?
• How is sound different when heard through solids?

Investigation 4

• How can pitch,volume, and the distance a sound can travel be modified or enhanced?

Assessments:
The students will have a project to complete at home and a written assessment.

New Writing and Reading units

Writing:
We will be publishing our Literary essays and moving onto poetry next week (week 7).

Students will learn:

• How poets develop their ideas.
• The different elements of poetry (Imagery, emotions,beat)
• How to use literary devices: similies, metaphors, alliteration
• How to use line breaks.
• How to end with your strongest line
• How to make a catchy title
• How to revise and edit poetry
• How to publish poetry.

The end product will be a poetry tea which you will all be invited to!

Reading:
Book clubs will be starting next week. All groups will be reading a book by the author Roald Dahl. Every student will have a specific job during these sessions:

New Maths Unit- Fractions

We have moved onto our next maths unit: Fractions

These are the objectives that will be covered in this unit:

• Fraction concepts
• Multiple representations of fractions
• Problem solving with fractions
• Whole
• Part-whole fractions
• Area model of fractions
• Fractions of sets
• Addition of fractions
• Comparisons of fractions
• Equivalent fractions
• Finding a fraction of a number
• Multiplication facts for square numbers

New Social Studies Unit beginning week 5 27th March

Resources:

Essential questions:

• What are the different types of resources?
• Why are resources important?
• How does the availability of resources affect needs and beliefs?
• How do borders and boundaries affect the distribution and use of resources?

By the end of this unit,

Students will know:

• There are three types of resources (natural, human and capital)
• That some resources are renewable and some are nonrenewable
• That boundaries affect access to resources
• That communities barter and trade resources to meet their needs
• That the availability and/or restrictions of natural resources affects community decisions (migration, establishment of permanent communities vs. nomadic lifestyle, government)

Assessments:

• Ongoing assessments and observation will take place.
• Final written assessment

Trimester 3 Week beginning 27th February

What's happening this month

Writing:

We have finished our Persuasive writing essays, and will be moving onto Literary Essays.
In this unit, the essential questions are:

• What is a literary essay?
• What are the key components of a literary essay?

The students will know by the end of this unit:

• the structure of a literary essay (opening, 3 statements with supporting evidence, closing)
• literary essay language
• how to make statements about author's craft, connections, characters, questions
• the qualities of a good literary essay
• to plan their essay in their Reader's Notebook

Assessment:
By the need of the unit each student should have published at least one literary essay which will be marked using a rubric.

Reading:
Character Development study
I this unit the students will be looking at the following essential questions:

• What makes a good fiction story?
• What are the elements of a fiction story?

By the end of this unit, the students will be able to:

• To use the story elements to guide understanding.
• T focus on characters behaviors in order to describe him or her.
• To pay attention to what characters say.
• To pay attention to characters actions.
• To pay attention to what or how character thinks.
• To name character traits to describe character actions
• To describe a character by paying attention to how a character is affected by other characters in a story.
• To gather evidence from text to support thought
• To develop an idea
• To compare and contrast characters and story events.
• Characters change in stories - characters are good problem solvers (sometimes)
• To make personal and text-to-text connections
• To identify author's message and issues
• To work with a partner and a book of same title (independent level) to discuss character development

Assessment:
Oral retelling of findings
Character maps and story maps will be used

Science:
Rocks and Minerals

In connection with land biomes and natural resources, two Social Studies themes that we will investigate all year, students will use their natural curiosity and observations about the land around them to determine what minerals make up various kinds of rocks.

In order to better understand how biomes are formed, students will investigate how different minerals create the properties of the land they form.

Investigation 1 Completed

• What are some of the properties we can use to describe individual rocks?
• How can we determine the ingredients of a rock?
• How can we separate the ingredients of a rock?
• What are the ingredients in mock rocks?
• What evidence do you have to support your conclusions?

Investigation 2 Completed

• What properties can we use to identify minerals?
• How can your fingernail, a penny, and a paperclip help determine hardness.

Investigation 3 Completed

• How can we tell if one of the ingredients in a rock is the mineral calcite?
• Is there another test we can do to know for sure which rocks contain calcite?

Investigation 4 Ongoing

• What are the mineral ingredients in granite?

Assessments:

• Ongoing informal assessments made after each investigation.
• Short written assessments after each investigation.
• Project and presentation (homework)
• Final Unit test

Mathematics:
Mid year test (completed)

Our next unit is: Multiplication patterns (Two week unit)

The essential questions for this unit:

• What is multiplication?
• What is the relationship between multiplication and division?
• What are factors?
• What are square numbers?
• What it is a prime number?
• What are turn-around rules?
• How do turn-around rules work with multiplication?
• How do turn-around rules work with division?

Assessments:

The children will show evidence of their learning in the following ways:

• Discussions
• Explanations
• Representations using arrays
• Number sentences multiplication and division
• Explanations of multiplication strategies
• Solutions to problems involving money
• Solutions to multiplication and division problems
• Mad Minute Facts
• End of unit test
  

T2 Week 7-10 Month of January

What's happening this month

Writing:
We are starting a new unit on persuasive personal narratives. The students will produce an essay outlining a statement and then reasons and evidence to back up their statement.

They should:

• Pick a topic that matters to them
• make a statement
• back it up with 3 ideas
• give several examples to support their ideas
• include a catchy opening paragraph with the statement and 3 reasons
• include a closing paragraph with statement and 3 reasons
• use essay words
• use a convincing voice
• Each paragraph should mention the statement again

Reading:

This month we will be looking at 'Determining Importance'.

The students will know:

• how to distinguish between fiction and nonfiction
• how to identify important ideas
• how to recognize and use "self-talk"
• the difference between retelling, summarizing and finding the gist
• how to use text features to identify importance in nonfiction texts

In addition to this, I will continue reading with the class in their guided reading groups.

Social Studies:

Out new unit in Social Studies is 'Beliefs'.
These are the essential questions we will be looking at:

• What are beliefs?
• Why are beliefs important?
• Why do people have different beliefs?
• Why do some beliefs change over time?

By the end of this unit, the students will know:

• that a belief is a firmly held opinion
• that people have different beliefs
• that beliefs support a sense of community
• that beliefs and culture are interconnected
• that beliefs provide a sense of belonging and purpose
• that beliefs help to explain life/origins
• that beliefs differ depending on many factors (i.e. physical surroundings, resources, needs, time, etc.)
• that beliefs can change over time for a variety of reasons (i.e. scientific discovery, outside influences, age, moving to a new location, exposure to different beliefs, etc.

We will be looking at the life of Rosa Parks and the Australian aboriginal people to discover and compare their beliefs and how their actions and life were effected by their beliefs.

Mathematics:

Our next unit in maths is further exploring Multiplication and Division.

The students will be taught:

• To understand multiplication
• To understand division
• To understand how multiples can be graphed
• To understand the relationship between the number of sides of a regular figure and its perimeter

Please see changes in the spelling homework for this term on the homework section.

Thank you and Have a great January!

Mrs Wilcox

2nd trimester Week 3-5

We hope to accomplish a great deal before the Christmas holidays, so it's going to be a busy 3 weeks!

Writing:
We are in the process of drafting and editing our non-chronological reports. We have gone over in detail how to write an introduction, and paragraphs for our book. Writing a catchy opening, including details and facts and adding a closing sentence.
Next week the children will begin to type up their reports on Word, creating a contents page, glossary and index. We hope to complete the whole process before the holidays.

Reading: The children have been reading in guided reading sessions with me in small groups. We have focused on reading and analysing non-fiction texts, looking for non-fictions features and adding extra features to the text. Thinking of appropriate headings to go with a text and labeling pictures were some of the activities the children worked on.
Next week we will move onto our next unit: Inferencing

Maths: In maths we have completed our unit on area and will be moving on to more addition and subtraction. The children will be learning how to add and subtract 2 and 3 digit numbers using a variety of methods.

Science: We will be finishing our Science unit on bones and joints this week. The children have learnt about the human skeleton, it's function and names. Joints, the types of joints and where to find certain joints is what we will be covering this week.

Social Studies: Next week, we will begin our Social studies unit on Beliefs.