Weekly Update-May 24th

Dear Families,

We are a buzz of activity in room 27.  Read on to find out what we've been up to!

-Alites

ABC Countdown

By Kyra, Daniel, and Caitlin

The entire school is participating in the ABC countdown to the last day of school. Each letter of the alphabet is a school wide activity. For example, we wore pink to school to prevent bullying.  We read books with our buddies and wore blue for the letter B. For the letter D we celebrated with donuts Furthermore, we had Exercise Day, Fancy Day and Green Day.  Everyone wore green to school and played board games. On Monday we will be having Hat Day. On Tuesday, we will be having ices in school.  We have been having a fun time and we can’t wait for more to come.

 

                   Immigration Investigation

                     By Sakina, Emilie, and Steven

In class we have been working on our heritage projects. This week, we decorated our heritage binder/scrapbook. We also started working on a paper heart project. We each got 2 paper hearts. We decorated one heart with images representing America. The other heart is decorated with images representing where your family is from. Then we combined them! You will see them on Heritage Day hanging in our classroom.  We also made family crests. We wrote our family motto and our last names on the crests. On Friday, May 31st we will be celebrating all our hard work with our families during the Heritage Luncheon.  We can't wait!

Book Club

By Brian, Adam, and Trevor

In class, we are continuing book clubs. We get 3 post-it notes every week, and we have to write a question or an observation about the book to share with our book club. We discuss the book every Friday, and write key points about our discussion on our I-Pad. We also write things to focus on in the next few chapters. We all are excited to see how our books turn out!

Blue Man Group

By Rachel, Madeline and Becca

This week we went on a 5^th grade field trip to see Blue Man Group. Everyone had a lot of fun! One of the things they did was put paint on a drum and then beat the drum so the paint would come up and look like fire. They didn’t talk at all during the entire show which made it really cool because they only used their emotions and body language to communicate. Also, they had these huge iphones called GiPads. The GiPads had really cool apps like making you look transparent through the phone. Finally, they played different kinds of instruments and had a lot of dance parties with toilet paper. We all had a lot of fun on this trip and hope we can go back soon!

Math Quest

By Austin, Chris and Jared

Math Quest is a challenging problem solving math game where teams work together to answer complex word problems.  It is really fun!  The teams are the Mathappers, Fab+five, Brainy Brunch and the Funky Factors.  The Funky Factors are in first place…but not by a lot.  Anybody can win!  We get fate cards that make the game all the more exciting.  Our favorite fate card was when we had to balance a book on our head.  Every week we focus on a different problem solving skill like guess and check or making a table.  We are learning and having fun at the same time.

 

 

 

Weekly Update-May 17th

Dear Families,

It has been a super week here in room 27.  Check out what the children have to say!

-Alites

Book Clubs

By: Madeline, Sakina and Steph 

We started book clubs. Each group was assigned a book which was either: Wonder, Pinball’s, The Giver or Welcome Home Jellybean. Each week we read up to a certain page. On Friday we have a discussion about our book. We take notes on the ipad at the end of the session. Every week there is a new discussion leader who leads the group. This week as we are reading we are jotting down questions about the book on post-it notes to discuss with our group. We love our book clubs!

Career Day

By Austin, Adam and Daniel

 Career day is when the parents come in and talk about their jobs.  First, Mrs. Ajah came in and talked about her being a lawyer.  Then Mr. Garten came in and talked about him being a different type of lawyer.  Then, Mr. Garten told us about how he works for Donald Trump at the Trump Tower.  He also travels a lot like Las Vegas, Los Angeles, Cancun, Israel, etc. He even brought us Trump chocolate bars and an autographed picture.

Immigration

By Michael and Steven

This week in social studies we learned about immigration. The teachers read us two books about immigration. The  two books are called Peppe, the Lamplighter and American Too. We learned about the tough living conditions that the immigrants of the 1880s had to face. We also continue to learn about our family’s heritage. We hope to learn more about immigrants and our family’s heritage.

Math Quest

By Brian, PJ and Jared

 In school, we are participating in a math challenge called Math Quest. In Math Quest, we are split into 4 teams. The Funky Factors are Brian, PJ, Madeline, Steph and Kyra. The Fab+Five are Jared, Logan, Adam, Trevor and Steven. The Brainy Bunch is Rachel, Sanjyot, Caitlin, Daniel and Chris. The Mathappers are Austin, Michael, Rebecca, Emilie, and Sakina. In Math Quest, we are solving word problems for units like Charts, Guess & Check and Draw a Picture. We solve problems for points and at the end, whoever has the most points wins!  We also have Fate Cards that are games of chance that can improve or lessen your standing in the game.

Check out some pictures of us working with our teams below!

Science

By Chris, Logan and Sanjyot

In Science, we were given a study packet for a test this upcoming Monday. Our teachers’ gave us a questioner packet to use with our study packet. In Science, we played a Jeopardy game in preparation for the test. On Wednesday, we did a PowerPoint on assigned science topics that we will present to the class.  We are excited to be the teachers. We are going to ace this test!!!!!

States and Capitals

By Caitlin, Kyra, and Trevor

We are learning about the Midwest this week. Some of the states are Ohio, Nebraska, Iowa etc. We are given our states on Monday and we write the state on one side and the capital on the other side of an index card.  For the rest of the week we have to study, study, study, with our study guides. So far we have covered the Northeast, Southeast, and the Southwest regions of the United States. We are learning new states and capitals everyday!!!

Reading Buddies

By Rachel, Becca, and Emilie

For the past two weeks, we have been doing a reading program with our 1^st grade buddies. We all watch a video called Martha Speaks and then we ask our buddies questions about the video. Every week we have a few vocabulary words that are related to the video. Then we read a special book together that has to do with the words. We ask our buddies questions about the book.  We also play a game with our buddy that reinforces the new vocabulary words. Last week we made dog super heroes out of brown paper bags. Finally, we do a little writing activity to finish it off. We love reading with our buddies!  

Math Quest Challenge

Cinco de Mayo-May 3

Dear Families,
On Friday, we celebrated Cinco de Mayo.  We spent much of the morning in stations creating tile art, lacquer ware and birch bark paintings inspired by Mexican artisans.  We discovered that nature and geometry are common motifs among Mexican crafts.  In the afternoon, we sampled Mexican food, desserts and listened to Mariachi music.  We had a great time.  A special GRACIAS to our class parents for their help with the food.
-Alites

Mexican Tile Station

Lacquer ware Station

Birch Bark Painting Station

Cinco de Mayo Celebration

Weekly Update-May 3, 2013

   Dear Families,

The children are so excited to share all the comings and goings in room 27.  It's hard to believe it is already May...times flies when you are having fun!

-Alites

                  Cinco de Mayo

           By Sakina, Kyra, Steven, and Daniel

In honor of Cinco de Mayo, we will be celebrating in class on Friday. We will be eating different types of Mexican food, doing arts and crafts, decorating tiles, making bark paintings, designing lacquer ware (plates), and listening to Mexican music. Cinco de Mayo is a celebration of Mexican heritage. This is something that we all are looking forward to. We can’t wait till Friday to try all these activities!

Crash

By Brian, Emilie and Chris

In our class, we are reading Crash by Jerry Spinelli. 7^th grader John “Crash” Coogan (named for the time he crashed into his cousin) started off as a big bully, but when his grandfather is hospitalized for a stroke, he becomes nicer. His family is not very interactive because his parents both work a lot. Crash used to love tormenting his neighbor Penn Webb, but now he doesn’t enjoy it. We all are excited to find out what happens in the book!

Science

By Rachel, Stephanie, Trevor, and PJ

          Previously in science, we were learning about chemical and physical changes. A physical change is when you change the look of an object but it is still the same object it always was. A chemical change is when you change an object and it doesn’t return to its original form. In science, we did an experiment to prove what a physical change was. We melted ice on metal and hot metal. We proved that when we put the ice on the hot metal, it melted, but we could always change it back to ice if we froze it. To prove a chemical change, we filled beakers with water, put in food coloring, oil and Alka-Seltzer tablets to make it bubble! We made lava lamps!

          This week in science, we started to study geology. We classified rocks/minerals by their properties and figured out what they were called. We learned about all of the properties of matter. We had a really good time in science and we can’t wait for what we will do next week!

Italian Projects

By Madeline, Austin and Caitlin

CIAO! For the past few months each of us was assigned a topic about Italian cities, sports, foods, fashion etc. We shared our projects in front of the class during FLES.  At the end of each presentation, some people asked questions. Also, if you had a topic about food (pizza, zeppoles, biscotti, cannolies, ices, lemon cake etc.) you presented ten facts and then shared the food you brought in to the class. We enjoyed out Italian experience!

Heritage Project

By: Logan, Sanjyot and Jared

This month we are working on our 5^th grade heritage project. We are learning about our ancestors and our past. We are also learning about family traditions and cultures. Logan’s ancestors are from Asia; Sanjyot’s ancestors came from India; and Jared’s are from England. This week we are sharing family heirlooms with the class. Logan is sharing a traditional outfit; Sanjyot is sharing a recipe; and Jared is sharing a bowl. We are excited to learn about our ancestors!  

Math Quest

By Adam, Rebecca, and Michael

What is Math Quest?

          Math Quest is a game involving all of the students in the class.  Students were divided up into 4 teams. They came up with team names. The names are Fab+5, Mathappers, Funky Fractions and The Brainy Bunch. We are going to be practicing our problem solving skills during this unit. As we solve math problems, we will collect travel dots and earn pieces of gold. This combines friendly competition and enjoyment. Math can be FUN!!!!!!

 

Weekly Update-May 1st

Dear Families,
In the photos below you will see your children preparing their lesson plan for our first grade reading buddies. They are working with their buddies on new vocabulary, reading skills and writing. The photos show the reading program in action.
-Alites