Happy Friday!

I just read last week's blog post and realize I don't have too much new to say this week -- we are still working on many of the same things!  Readers are looking for social issues in their books, thinking about fairness and unfairness, struggles the character is having, and parts that make them feel uncomfortable. Mostly, they are learning to build ideas and discuss them with their groups. They are doing a wonderful job with this! Writers have all developed a thesis and we are learning to elaborate with personal stories and transition words. In a week or so we will move into persuasive writing.

In math, we have started our new unit which is all about adding and subtracting with numbers up to 10,000. This is exciting! So far we have explored adding by breaking numbers up into their hundreds, tens and ones, or by breaking up one number and adding the other by place. We have also explored compensation a bit -- rounding one of the numbers up or down to get to a landmark, and then doing the opposite to compensate once we have the sum. Next week we will begin to teach the US algorithm, and I expect most of the math thinkers in this class to have a huge AHA and catch on to this method really quickly!

This week's big excitement was Lt Gov. Zuckerman's visit. We came up with a bunch of great questions and he patiently answered all of them. The students were a fabulous audience, and I think a lot of them listened to every word he said. Next week we will explore the Bill of Rights, and then we will start looking at actual bills that our legislators are discussing this session. We will pick one or two to focus on, and we will write letters to our legislators either supporting or disagreeing with them.  We will finish off the unit with a "mock legislature" where each student will become a representative or senator from a Vermont county and then we will hold a debate and a vote.  Stay tuned for more details!

That's all for this week. I hope you all enjoy the long weekend and manage to stay warm!