The Monday holiday and our field trip to the Fire Museum made for a short week in the classroom, but we kept pace and squeezed in a lot of learning.
As a whole group, we've continued our read aloud and critical analysis of Charlotte's Web. The author wrote excellent passages for readers to use to practice visualization. In writing, we have been adding more details to our own sentences, and have practiced writing about a shared experience in order to compare our various points of view in a small moments narrative. We read a spooky story called The Stranger, and looked for clues/evidence in the text to infer who the mysterious character was. We have been studying how proper use of commas clarifies our writing, and improves expression and understanding when we read aloud,
In Social Studies we continued to focus on how people use their environment to provide for their basic needs. We read about Wangari, a Nobel prize winner who started a green belt movement to revive the forests of Kenya. Students were quite inspired, and this led to some independent research about Wangari and Kenya during choice reading time.
In Science we integrated Halloween into our forces and motion unit. Students engineered pulleys to fly ghosts, witches, monsters, bats, and pumpkins across the room. We also rolled 'eyeballs' to illustrate the transfer of forces when objects collide. We won't be taking time in class to specifically make decorations, though we will end up with some decorations that come from our thematic STEM activities :) Students would like the classroom to be more decorated, so I told them they are welcome to make decorations at home to bring in,
Math has us working on the distributive property in division, as well as place value up to the millions.
We also had a lot of fun in Drama acting out the 'Banana Custard' skit. Students were very creative in interpreting possible meanings for the short lines.
As a whole group, we've continued our read aloud and critical analysis of Charlotte's Web. The author wrote excellent passages for readers to use to practice visualization. In writing, we have been adding more details to our own sentences, and have practiced writing about a shared experience in order to compare our various points of view in a small moments narrative. We read a spooky story called The Stranger, and looked for clues/evidence in the text to infer who the mysterious character was. We have been studying how proper use of commas clarifies our writing, and improves expression and understanding when we read aloud,
In Social Studies we continued to focus on how people use their environment to provide for their basic needs. We read about Wangari, a Nobel prize winner who started a green belt movement to revive the forests of Kenya. Students were quite inspired, and this led to some independent research about Wangari and Kenya during choice reading time.
In Science we integrated Halloween into our forces and motion unit. Students engineered pulleys to fly ghosts, witches, monsters, bats, and pumpkins across the room. We also rolled 'eyeballs' to illustrate the transfer of forces when objects collide. We won't be taking time in class to specifically make decorations, though we will end up with some decorations that come from our thematic STEM activities :) Students would like the classroom to be more decorated, so I told them they are welcome to make decorations at home to bring in,
Math has us working on the distributive property in division, as well as place value up to the millions.
We also had a lot of fun in Drama acting out the 'Banana Custard' skit. Students were very creative in interpreting possible meanings for the short lines.