Hello parents of the students in Ms. Staniszewski’s class. This week we have a short week because of Good Friday so we have no school. Everyone is excited for April vacation next week. On Monday we Skyped with the author of Pax, Sarah Pennypacker, because that book won the battle of the books. She told us about Pax and a special writing technique she use while writing the book. On Wednesday we had to bring our IPads and chargers to school so they could stay at school for MCAS. If you were going away for vacation early, you would bring them in on Tuesday. On Thursday we had Maturation Day. Boys and Girls were separated to watch a video about changes to their bodies.

ELA

In ELA, we are doing an activity with Ms. Cincotta’s class on Monday and Wednesday about point of view and perspective. First, we watched a video about Cinderella and then Ms. Stan read a book about Cinderella too, but from her stepmother’s perspective. Then we were divided into four groups and there were four stations. We are suppose to rotate so everyone can work at each station. The first station is to read a book about a fairy tale with a partner, where the evil person in the story tells the fairy tale from their point of view, and they make it sound like the good one is the bad one. The second station is with Ms. Staniszewski, and we compare and contrast the original story of Cinderella with a story from the wicked step-mother’s point of view. The third station is with Mrs. Whitehall, and we read the original Cinderella up to when the fairy-godmother comes, and then we have to change the rest of the story, and we can have different characters and a different setting. The last station is with Ms. Cincotta, and we have to describe the Cinderella in the story from the stepmother’s point of view and explain how the adjectives go with Cinderella. We won’t be having spelling words or Literacy Letters this week because of vacation.

Math

In Math, we didn’t have any homework because vacation is coming up. This week we have been working on area and perimeter. We have a packet that we have to finish, and if you finish it during math you could do Zearn or Prodigy, which are two math games our class plays. So not very much has happened in Math Class.

Social Studies

In Social Studies, We finished the unit on slavery and now we are on to the unit of life in colonial Williamsburg. During the slavery unit we had to fill out a packet for a BrainPop video. When we got past that unit we had to read the Reading Further section in Chapter 8 and the whole Chapter 9. After we read Chapter 9 we had to answer the questions at the bottom of each page.

Science

In Science, we are learning about the earth. Like the Layers of Earth and the natural disasters. The order of the layers of Earth are from the outside, Crust, the Mantle, the Outer Core, and then, finally, the inner Core. We had to read a few pages in a science book, and then we had to fill out two papers that had questions about slow and rapid changes on Earth. Then we watched a Bill Nye video about Earth’s crust. We also watched some more BrainPop videos about Earth such as Volcanos, Tsunamis, and many more.

Specials

On Monday we had Gym, and every time we have Gym before vacation we have choice week, where we can choose between dodgeball, hula hoops, badminton, gymnastics, dance machine or a parachute.

On Tuesday we had Technology, and we played a game called Scratch, where you learn about coding and can create games and videos. Ms.DeFiore set up challenges for us and we had to pick one and do it without directions by ourselves

On Wednesday we should have had Music as our special , but we had to go to the auditorium for a presentation from The Weather Channel about natural disasters and how they track them down.

On Thursday we had Art, and we drew this optical illusion where you would trace your hand on a piece of paper, and then draw lines going horizontally across the paper, but not on the hands. Then you would go across the hands, and the lines would curve upwards just a little, so it would look like the hand was coming out of the paper. Then you would go over the lines and hand in black sharpie, then you would color it in.

On Friday we should have had Gym again, but it was Good Friday so we didn’t have school.

That concludes our blog. Thank you for reading, and you will get another weekly class blog in 2 weeks.

Your Bloggers,

Vincent and Michelle