Weekly Update-January 18th

What an exciting week for the Alites...read all about it!

Chorus
By Kyra, Sanjyot, Becca and Jared

            In chorus we are singing three songs.  They are called Winter Wishes, Water Come on Me Eye and Chattanooga Choo-Choo.  In one of the songs we play instruments.  Our concert is next week.  We hope to see all of you there!

DNA Lab Visit

By Stephanie, Sakina and Adam

On Tuesday, we went to the science lab for a visit with the DNA lab from Cold Spring Harbor. They came to us and in March we are going to go to visit them on a field trip. The scientist that came was a woman and her name was Ms. Gotlieb. She brought microscopes for us to look at cells. She printed letter E’s out for us to look through the microscopes and we found out that it was not only solid black, it had white spots in it.  Another thing we had to do is find our cheek cells. We took a toothpick (that was not sharp) and we put it in our mouths and rubbed it on the inside of our cheeks and retrieved some cheek cells. After we collected the cells on a slide, Ms. Gotlieb put a drop of blue food coloring on it so it would be easier for us to see. Next, we placed the slide under the microscope and looked for our cells. Some kids even saw the nucleus of their cheek cell. We had a lot of fun and can’t wait till we go to the DNA lab!

Economics

By Rachel, Michael and Yunseo

         This week we got new economic words. We learned about the 3 different types of economies. They are the command economy, free market economy and a traditional economic system. The traditional economic system is when a kid grows up they have the same job/trade as their parent. The command economy is when the government basically controls everything. Last but not least, the free market economy gives the consumers the freedom to buy what they want and to make their own choices. This is also known as capitalism. We have a free market economy in the United States. Also, the owners of businesses in a free market economy have much more freedom than they would in a command economy. We also learned about supply and demand and we are ready for the test tomorrow!

FLES

By Austin, Emilie and Daniel

In FLES we are wrapping up the language, Italian. Our last assignment for Italian is to pick a topic from an Italian category and write a report about it with at least 10 facts.  Austin’s topic is the Leaning Tower of Pisa. Emilie’s is reporting on pizza, and Daniel will teach us about pasta. While we work on these reports at home, we will be beginning French in school. Bye or as they say in Italian, Ciao!

The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe

By: Logan, Madeline and Trevor

Our read aloud is called, The Lion, The Witch and The Wardrobe. This book is written by C.S. Lewis. We meet a lot of mythical creatures throughout the book. Like a witch, a faun, and a dwarf. The book starts off to be realistic and then it jumps right into fantasy. This story takes place in a world called Narnia. This is how this book all started... A girl named Lucy went into a wardrobe and she found out that it never ended. Then, all of a sudden she feels something cold on her feet and it is snow. That is how she finds out that it is magical. We are excited to read more about this exhilarating book!

Math

By: Chris, PJ and Steven

Right now in math we are learning LCM and the LCD It stands for least common multiple and least common denominator. First we had a few warm ups and then we started activities. It was hard at first but then we got the hang of it .Step 1, we listed the multiples of the 2 denominators, and then we find the least common denominator. So when you have the numbers you rewrite the problem and then you divide the denominator. So what you do to the top you do to the bottom.

TOOTSIE ROLLS

By Caitlin and Brian

This week we learned all about the history of Tootsie Rolls as part of our unit on Economics. We watched a short video about how to make Tootsie Rolls. We also found out cool facts about Tootsie Rolls. Did you know that Tootsie Rolls were named after the daughter of the man that invented Tootsie Rolls? We also made up our own company and created advertisements for it. Caitlin’s was the Tweezies Co. There was also a cake pops and bars company. Brian’s was the SuperChocolate Fireball.  It was a great experience!