The weeks before and after vacation were full of writing lessons, field trips, and engineering projects.
Students have been working to organize their paragraphs and include topic and concluding sentences. We started a How To writing unit, and continue to work on the writing process, with a focus on stretching sentences, drafting, and editing. In word work and spelling we focused on prepositions, contractions, conjunctions and interjections.
We went on two virtual field trips! The first was to the state museum of Wyoming, and the second was to the Lisbon Zoo in Portugal! Students were able to walk around the museums via web cam and to interact in real time with tour guides. We learned about the Wyoming history and landscape, and the emphasis on environmental enrichment for the animals at the zoo. Students were thrilled to see giraffes, tigers, spider monkeys, penguins, flamingos, chimpanzees, kangaroos, and more!
Before Thanksgiving, we shared our classroom with grade 2, and played a cooperative based game with a literature connection to Stone Soup. We explored some new apps that took us around the world. We engineered Mayflower boats and filled them with "pilgrims" to test their functionality. We read stories about the history and meaning of native american corn husk dolls, and then built our own. Then we enjoyed the community feast.
Our trip to the Fort Point Art Studios was engaging and inspiring. Students learned about temporal, performance, and installation art, and met personally with the artists whose exhibits they had gotten to view and touch. Students connected the art to current events and literature. Back in the classroom, students constructed their own temporal art pieces as a response to the exhibit that turned ordinary objects into art.
We continued to focus on sound waves in science, building wave conductors, (i.e., phones). Math has us pretending to be santa's elves in order to embody a real life application of the distributive property.
We are 8 chapters into Because of Winn Dixie, and students have analyzed dialogue to understand characters, and are making predictions about the meaning of the title and how characters may change as the book continues.
We had our iready assessment this week. We are learning how to answer text dependent questions in class. This is a skill that iready both requires and reinforces. Please continue to practice iready at home, or schedule time for students to stay after school to avail themselves of use of an ipad for 20 minutes.
Students have been working to organize their paragraphs and include topic and concluding sentences. We started a How To writing unit, and continue to work on the writing process, with a focus on stretching sentences, drafting, and editing. In word work and spelling we focused on prepositions, contractions, conjunctions and interjections.
We went on two virtual field trips! The first was to the state museum of Wyoming, and the second was to the Lisbon Zoo in Portugal! Students were able to walk around the museums via web cam and to interact in real time with tour guides. We learned about the Wyoming history and landscape, and the emphasis on environmental enrichment for the animals at the zoo. Students were thrilled to see giraffes, tigers, spider monkeys, penguins, flamingos, chimpanzees, kangaroos, and more!
Before Thanksgiving, we shared our classroom with grade 2, and played a cooperative based game with a literature connection to Stone Soup. We explored some new apps that took us around the world. We engineered Mayflower boats and filled them with "pilgrims" to test their functionality. We read stories about the history and meaning of native american corn husk dolls, and then built our own. Then we enjoyed the community feast.
Our trip to the Fort Point Art Studios was engaging and inspiring. Students learned about temporal, performance, and installation art, and met personally with the artists whose exhibits they had gotten to view and touch. Students connected the art to current events and literature. Back in the classroom, students constructed their own temporal art pieces as a response to the exhibit that turned ordinary objects into art.
We continued to focus on sound waves in science, building wave conductors, (i.e., phones). Math has us pretending to be santa's elves in order to embody a real life application of the distributive property.
We are 8 chapters into Because of Winn Dixie, and students have analyzed dialogue to understand characters, and are making predictions about the meaning of the title and how characters may change as the book continues.
We had our iready assessment this week. We are learning how to answer text dependent questions in class. This is a skill that iready both requires and reinforces. Please continue to practice iready at home, or schedule time for students to stay after school to avail themselves of use of an ipad for 20 minutes.