Thursday, October 4th

• Reading Focus:
• Today in reading we talked about how to go from being a good reader to becoming a great reader.  We discussed that it takes GRIT to be a great reader.  You have to plan your reading, check your reading, challenge yourself, and talk about your reading.  Students took a Reading Grit test to see where they were strong and where they could improve.  They updated their reading goals and put their reading grit test in their portfolios.
• Specials
• Today they had Ms. Arbelo for Art.
• Writing
• The focus today was revising their drafts.  We looked at the story Come On, Rain and decided that good writing needs a few things to be interesting.  
• a good lead (opening)
• characters that are developed
• setting that is shown, not told
• dialogue between characters
• told little by little so it expands naturally
• sometimes it needs to create a movie, sometimes it needs to just give details
• it needs to use sense words that help you see, hear, smell, touch the different parts of the story
• It needs good descriptions and words
• After looking at all of those in Come On, Rain, students went back to work on their draft to revise.  This was the time to read with a critical eye and use the same techniques the author of Come On, Rain did!  We also took the time to read some of our class novel, "STRIDER".  This is the continuation of Dear Mr. Henshaw.
• Math
• The focus today was multiplying with estimation.  We took the skill we learned in Unit 1, estimation, and added it to the skill we learned yesterday, multiplying with powers of 10 to solve problems.  Students did pretty well on this concept.  Here is a Khan Academy video to help you review.
• Social Studies:
• We finished up our project on geography and moved on to looking at what different maps tell us.  

Homework:

• Math: GoMath Practice 2.4 (85-86)
• ELA: ELA Packet - Read What Type of Dog and answer multiple choice and short response
• Writing:  Make sure personal narrative has all the above mentioned aspects
• Reading:  Reading log: read for 30 minutes and use sticky notes to check reading.