Hello again!  We had another busy week here in Room 11!  In ELA this week we started to work on our final persuasive essays.  We started by brainstorming lots of persuasive topics by thinking of our favorite things, things we want and changes we think should be made.  Students then chose a topic that they were passionate about to use for their essay.  After that, students chose three strong reasons that they could use to back up their claim.  We made sure to choose reasons that we could support with lots of strong details!  Then, students worked on planning their body paragraphs by coming up with explanations, examples and details for each of their reasons.  After that, we started writing our body paragraphs.  Students reviewed how to write strong topic and concluding sentences, and how to use transition words in their writing.  Next week we will add introduction and concluding paragraphs to our pieces.

In Social Studies this week students finished creating slides about life during Colonial Times.  Then, we learned about the French and Indian War.  Students colored maps showing where different countries claimed land before and after the war and used that to draw conclusions about what happened in the war.  Then we watched a video about the war and identified causes and effects.

I hope that everyone has a wonderful weekend!  Please reach out to me with any questions.

A few reminders:

• Field trip permission slips and payment for the Bronx Zoo are due May 5th.
• Our NYS Math test will be on Wednesday, May 3rd and Thursday, May 4th.  Once again, we start our test first thing in the morning, so please be sure kiddos arrive to school on time.
• Walkabout is coming up on Thursday, May 11th at 6:30.  We look forward to sharing some of our fabulous work with you!

Here are some photos of our writers hard at work!