Books we're reading in April & May

Here's a peek at the books the students are working with right now.

A message from Mr. Palana

Thank you for visiting our class Web page! I’m so excited to be teaching your students and to have this space to share my classroom and their work with you. Let me start by telling you a little bit about what students are doing when they enter my room.

In room 221, we challenge ourselves to be better writers, better thinkers and better speakers as we explore novels, nonfiction texts, poetry and world geography.

We conduct research, develop claims and support our data with strong reasoning as we transform our opinions into powerful, dynamic writing. We find out voices as writers and use them to be advocates for out causes.

We also continue to develop our creative writing as we try new forms of figurative language, different types of poetry and a variety of other types of writing that require us to expand our vocabulary and take risks as writers.

In Social Studies, we learn how to record data as we explore the world and all its interesting wonder. We travel across the continents to explore how where we come from shape who we are as we discuss the challenges facing different people across the globe and how issues that may seem like they are happening far, far away affect our daily lives in Kingston.

But most important of all, we learn how to have fun while helping each other grow as writers, thinkers, public speakers and overall people. We help our classmates edit and rewrite, explore their thinking and advocate for themselves in a supporting and nurturing environment.

Thank you for checking out our class site. Feel free to keep exploring. There are links to Google Classroom pages for each class, where students can have access to instructions, rubrics and assignments.

Have a great day!