November and December Edition

Gallardo Gazette
 November and December Edition

Written and edited by the students in Room 2

Current Curriculum Topics
Math- Best Buys and Ratios
Reading- Short Stories
   Writing – Literary Essays
 Social Studies- Exploration and Early
                         Settlements
Serious Talk- Understanding Us
Identity
 
Coming Soon
 Science-  Matter





 Math- Games, Standard Algorithm, Division

By Sarah
         Do you want to know what we have done in math? Well so far we have done games, standard algorithm, multiplication fact practice on the computers, partial quotients, and we just started geometry.
         Some games we learned is multiplication top it, rounding to the nearest hundredths, division dash, and many other games like multiplication race, division dash and first to 100. You play multiplication top it by flipping two cards from a deck then you multiply those numbers and whichever partner has a bigger product wins all the cards. In rounding to the nearest hundredths you flip five cards and put a decimal in between the second and third card then you round to the nearest hundredth. In division dash you flip three cards, then you make a division problem that will give you the biggest quotient, then you solve the problem and your quotient is how many points you get. If you have a remainder you get the amount of points the whole number is.
          A little while ago we learned standard algorithm. We learned how you start with the ones place and make your way up to the tens and hundreds place we also learned the turtleneck strategy to help us learn standard algorithm easier. We also learned partial quotients and how using easier numbers are better and you have to estimate first so you know if it’s right or probably wrong.
         We just started geometry a few days ago. First, we sorted shapes on a piece of paper like right triangles, rectangles, parallelograms, and a rhombus then we made our own quilt to decorate out of the shapes we already drew. We also worked on acute, right, obtuse, and straight angles. We are also learning how to use a protractor to figure out the degrees of an angle. These are some things we have learned in math.

Community Camp Challenge
         By: Vatan and Ben
       In math we have been working on a math challenge called the Community Camp Challenge. It is all about creating a Summer Camp. We have to make a budget for our camp and decide how much to charge our campers. Did we tell you we also have to hire a staff and pay them too. The goal is to get a profit of $1,000!The hardest part of this challenge is paying the camp director and the counselors.  For example the counselors get paid 15.75$ per hour. If they work for 8 hours in a day for 10 days how much money would you have to give them?
         The problem is that it is a lot like in real life because we have create a budget and decide how to best spend our money. One thing to consider is we can either buy pizza from Alexander’s or we can buy pizza from Lexington House of Pizza for the campers. It may seem simple but you have to calculate which would be cheaper. And with the shirts, if you buy 101+ shirts the price for each shirt get cheaper but the smaller amount of shirts you buy it costs more. That is an example of one of the question but it isn´t always math.

We get to design the camp too. You can make it a sports camp or a whatever you want camp. If you make it a sports camp, then you have to add a football field and a soccer field etc. You can plan a map for your camp too, you have to make a proposal to the staff, directors, and kids showing how much money each thing costs. You need to find out how much each kid will pay you. If there are 30 kids and they have to pay you $500 for their stay then 30x500 is $15,000. So now $15,000 will be your budget. With that $15,000, you have to pay for the t shirts, the pizza and the director and counselors, the cheaper the price the better.
 As you can see this camp adventure has been a big success and it gave us a great real life example that we had to use our math problem solving skills.

Reader’s Workshop- Research Groups

By Noor and Rylee

This unit in readers workshop we have been doing research groups. Research groups are when a few people get together and research debatable topics. There are lots of different groups like are extreme sports worth the risk, should we study space exploration or water exploration, then Rylee is in should we protect sharks from humans or humans from sharks, and Noor is in,should animals be kept in zoos?

  In our mini groups we took turns having a flash debate. We said our reasons and evidence and which side of the argument we thought was the strongest. We read paper printed articles or we can read books about our topics to gather more evidence for are argument. So far we have been practicing which side of the argument we take based on which one is the strongest. For example ,in should we keep animals in zoos Noor took the side that animals shouldn’t be kept in zoos and Rylee took the side that we should protect sharks from humans. We made a T chart and on one side is pros and on the other side is cons. So basically if we have more convincing evidence on one side then that is the side we take. We have to keep a open mide and we chose the side that has the most evidence not the side that we have our own opinion for. So as you can see we have been really busy in readers workshop!

Book Recommendations
By Ella

• Ms. Bixby’s Last Day By: John David Anderson

This book is about three boys who have a great teacher. She gets sick and the boys have to go on a quest to give her the last day she deserves. They break some rules along the way but it’s all for Ms. Bixby. This is a funny and heartwarming book.

• The Girl who Drank the Moon By: Kelly Barnhill

This book is about a young girl who is accidentally gets fed the moon as a baby from a kind witch this makes her magic. In this book it is through multiple points of view so another point of view besides Luna the girl. There is a boy who goes through many hard decisions in the story. Who goes from a boy to a kind young man. There are also some other points of view in this book.

• The Land of Stories Series By: Chris Colfer

This series is about two siblings who end up in a fairytale world and go on some adventures uncovering their history finding out the truth about what their grandmother started.

• Auggie and Me By: R.J. Palacio

As a sequel to award winning and new york times bestseller this book puts the perspective of 3 characters  that come up in wonder. The bully Julian, Auggie’s  friend christopher, and the dancer + welcome buddy charlotte. They all share memorable  stories about their struggles and how they deal with them.

• The losers Club By: Andrew Clements Recommended by: Brendan Schwartz

Is about a boy named Alec who loves to read. But after his principal tells all the students to pay attention in class Alec takes action because he doesn't want to lose reading time so he starts a club called the losers club thinking no one will want to join but is he correct?
 
Writer’s Workshop
Writer’s Workshop- Argument Writing about Chocolate Milk
By Brendan and Aidan

In writing we are writing persuasive essays on chocolate milk one side of the argument is that chocolate milk should be banned from school and the other side is that chocolate milk should be served at school. We have partners at the rug and we share what we have done or what are plan is for the day. When we are at the rug, our teacher gives us instruction then we write at are seats for 25 minutes at the end of the 25 minutes we share are side to the conversation then do a flash debate with are partner.When we write and argument essay, we say it like baking the perfect cake. Here is why, the right amount of icing is is the right amount of thinking and explanation,and the right amount of cake is the right amount of researched evidence.       

Here are some of the steps we take to write an argument essay. First we state our claim, for example , one claim would be,”students at Bowman school should be served chocolate milk in school. Then we give all  our strong reasons to convince the reader. In our second paragraph we state our claim again and then we give our first reason. After that we give all of our carefully selected evidence for that reason. Then we give our second or our last reason and then give our evidence for that reason. To finish it up we write a conclusion were we restate our claim and then maybe we give the reader something strong to leave off on.now in writing we started a new topic and gathering new reasons and evidence.

Some of the topics, we are arguing are should animals be kept in zoos, are sharks or humans more dangerous, should extreme sports be allowed, should we research the ocean or space, should we use plastic. 

     Setting Up Our Ecosystems

By Samantha

In science we made ecosystem out of plastic bottles and we filled it with dirt, gravel, water, crickets, snails, and isopods. We also planted seed such as the mustard seed. It grew in three days. Then we planted duckweed and elodea, but we not add algae because it makes water green. We observed the snails climbing up and getting out of the water. The crickets are struggling to get through the mustard plants. We will soon have mosquito fish. We also made and shared posters about the different organism in our ecosystem: crickets, snails, isopods, and mosquito fish. We became expert on our topic and taught other members of our classroom.

Ecosystems Experiment
By: Borneil  & Justin
 Have you wondered what we did on our 1st unit of science? Well this 1st unit of science we did ecosystem experiments. We studied effect of different human & nature impacts different ecosystems.

My group did acid rain, another group did road salt, even another group did lack of sunlight and water, and finally the last group did fertilizer.
For the acid rain group (Our group) we put vinegar (this was our acid rain) in our ecocolumns. Over time all the elodea(The green aquarium plants) turned white and brown and all the mosquito fish died and the snail’s shells cracked.
We then did a poster called the “Flow of energy” in partnerships, to meet success on the poster, we had to include 3 living and nonliving things that were in our ecocolumns, explain how they were important, and we had to label each organism. Also, we had to add arrows to show the “flow of energy”, we had to show what ate what, and finally have creativity.