Jingle bells, jingle all the way!

Kapolei Middle School Band and Choir sure put us in the Holiday spirit with a stellar performance this week.  Festive and traditional holiday songs, along with a fun remix of "Do You Wanna Build a Snowman" & "Let it Go", got us all so excited!  It was also a real treat to see our very own Vice Principal Mr. Agena, who use to work with Kapolei Middle School Band, conduct one of the songs for us.  We also learned about some of the instruments and the ensemble of the band.  The children were very interested.  Who knows.. we might have some band members in our future!

Here is a summary of what happened in our classroom:

​In Langauge Arts...

• This week students learned about Author's Purpose.  They learned that authors write for three main reasons: to persuade, inform, or entertain.  After reading through various text and sorting them into those categories, we found some common features amongst the three categories.  Books that may want to persuade its readers will sometimes have strong words like "you must" "STOP."  It may want to try to convince us to feel a certain way about a topic or even try to get us do so something.  We also talked about how we should be critical of the text we read and be aware that only the author's perspective is presented and can be sided or bias.  This is most commonly true with text found on the internet.  Text with an author's purpose to inform will present lots of facts or true information, may teach you how to do something step by step, and most often has text features.  While text with an author's purpose to entertain will often times be a made-up story, have characters, and makes us emotional (happy, sad, excited).  
• Using the text Magnets Work! we discussed our essential question: How do earth's forces affect us?  Students looked for clues that helped to determine the author's purpose.  Clues we found were that (1) the author said magnets have a force that pulls metals with iron and steel and (2) the author said that magnets are used in can openers, refrigerator doors, toys and even on bullet trains.  Thinking about these clues students determined the author's purpose is to inform because it describes how magnets work and how many ways people use them.     
• Grammar lessons this week included regular and irregular plurals.  Students learned that in most cases to make a word plural you can add 's' or 'es' to the end of the word (regular plurals).  However, students found this not to be the case with words like tooth = teeth, child = children, goose = geese, man = men, and person = people.  Students learned these words are called irregular plurals.  Students learned that adding 's' to the end of the word is not always to make it plural, but many times to show possession.  The children learned to use an apostrophe when indicating possession such as "grandma's house" or "the kitten's collar."  We talked about the importance of this apostrophe and how without, it may confuse readers to think there are many grandmas or more than one kitten.  Students practiced abbreviations with titles like Mr., Mrs., Dr. and learned how to abbreviate other words such as the calendar months, days of the week, and words in addresses such as St. and Rd.  Lastly, students learned about multiple-meaning words, words spelt the same but have more than one meaning.  For example, we talked about how the word "bat" can mean the flying animal or a baseball bat and the word "wave" can mean ocean swells as well as moving your had quickly to say hello or goodbye.  We made a list of many of these words, then students made a poster, which illustrated both meanings of the word and included a sentence for both meaning.  Some words included fall, note, bark, left, can, fly, and ring. 
• Using their tree maps, students are finishing up a draft one of their coral reef writing.  In writing, students learned how to plan for introductions and conclusions and the importance of having a hook to captivate the reader.  Students practiced writing multiple introductions.  They learned that introductions can be fun and not boring.  They can start with an exciting moment, a riddle, fast action, or a very interesting fact.  Here are some student examples "Did you know that coral is not a plant but an animal?" "Oh my watch out little turtle here comes a reef tip shark.  Wow! the coral reef sure is an exciting place." "What is an underwater habitat, very colorful, and has thousands of creatures living there?  That's right, coral reef!" 

In math...

• Students learned different strategies to add this week using base-ten blocks.  First they practiced drawing numbers out in base-ten representations, then they added how many tens and how many ones to find their total.  In the first lessons, no trading was needed.
• Once students understood the concept of base-ten blocks, students learned to add using base-ten with regrouping.  First they used actual base-ten blocks to manipulate and model the problem, then students practiced drawing the process of their thinking out.  They learned it's best to draw the ones neatly in rows so it's easier to count than if they were all over the place.  Also, they learned how to show their regrouping by circling ten ones, crossing it out, then drawing a new ten.
• At the end of the week, students learned about estimation.  Students learned when adding two two-digit numbers together, you can estimate the numbers to its nearest ten before adding.  For example when adding 59 + 15, you can change 59 to 60 first then add 15.  The children learned this strategy is useful when you don't need the exact amount but just want a close calculation of the value.  

In science...

• As our lima bean seeds are growing, we are learning about the stages of a seed.  A seed's life cycle includes the following stages in this order: seed, germination/roots, seedling/first leaves, flower, seed pod, pollination, and finally seed dispersal.  They are also learning about the function of each plant part.  Seeds reproduce the plant and also hold the plant's first nourishment.  The seed has just enough nourishment for the plant until the first leaves are formed then photosynthesis takes place and the plant can start making its own food.   Roots help to hold plants in place as well as suck up water to distribute to other plant parts.  Leaves provide food for the plant through the process of photosynthesis.   

REMINDERS AND ANNOUCEMENTS​

• If you have not returned your child's progress portfolio and evidence binder, please do so.  Thank you!
• If you are attending out Parent Activity on December 14, please meet us in the Cafeteria at 8:15.  Send your child to class at 7:45.  See you soon!