Dear Families,
We are so excited to share this newest blog with you all. The children are reporting on many of the activities in our classroom. Please leave us a comment. They would love to hear from you.
-Alites
Amazing How To Projects
By Kathryn and Jonah
In
class, everybody presented a How To
project. Alyssa demonstrated how to make
a clay sea dragon. After her presentation she let the class try to make a
dragon too. We had to follow very specific directions. They turned out great
and looked amazing. Avi made a torch theatre from a cereal box! He put on an
entire show for the class about The Lion and the Witch and the Wardrobe
using a flash light and characters. It was incredible! The rest of the class
did a great job too! They are displayed outside in the hall. It was lots of fun
making our projects and presenting them!
Government
By Alyssa, Joey, and
Dylan E
In social studies we were
studying government. We learned about the three branches of government. They
are the Judicial, Executive, and Legislative Branches. Each branch has three levels: local, federal, and
state. We made hangers to help us remember them. (See picture below)
We hung up the hangers on the ceiling. Some of them are hanging on the fans.
The Judicial Branch deals with the courts. An example is the Supreme Court.
The Legislative Branch makes laws. Congress is part of the Legislative Branch which is made up of the
Senate and the House of Representatives. The Executive Branch enforces
the laws. We learned about the branches of government and prepared
for our government test.
Home Schooling V.S. Public Schooling
By Carly and Vivian
A
couple of weeks ago we read a book called Schooled. After that we
started learning how to write opinion pieces. We based the opinion piece topics on Schooled. The class was split into two groups: people who support public schools
and people who support home schooling. Each group wrote an opinion essay on their topic.
After we wrote our essays we had a class debate. On the day of the debate the teachers
picked from the sticks and chose one person who supported homeschooling and one person that supported public schools. Each pair of students stood up in
front of the class and defended their side. There was a format to the debate that we followed. First both sides stated their opinion. Then one
person presented their position. Next, the other person responded and started a
new argument. Mr.
Luppy, our amazing school custodian, was our judge. The next day we got an email from Mr. Luppy telling us
that everyone did great and the debate was a tie.
Incredible Inquiry Projects
By Jillian and Olivia
This month we are working on a project called “Things That
Make You Go Hmmm”! First each one of us had to pick
a question that we always wondered the answers to. For example, Jillian’s question was What is in a snow globe? and Olivia’s
question was How do cats communicate?
Next we filled out a KWL chart (what we know, what we want to know, and what we
learned). Then, we researched our question and filled out the 'L' on the KWL
chart. Finally, we put all the information we gathered and made a
PowerPoint, Prezi, or poster. We presented them in class.
Math
By Matthew, Mikaela, and Judy
In class we have been working on long
division. We learned the steps it takes to complete a long division problem. These steps are, division, multiplication, subtraction and repeat. We are also experimenting with two and three digit divisors. To start each math lesson we sometimes play division games on the smart board. We take turns practicing and if we don’t get it right, the teachers help us. We do a lot of work together with our teachers and everybody
gets a chance to go up in front of the class and practice long
division.
Pioneers
By Marisa and Dylan H
In class we are learning
about Pioneers in Social Studies. We are studying Manifest Destiny. We started
the unit by looking at a painting called Manifest Destiny. We analyzed the painting and realized that America was the
angel going west who was bringing pioneers and technology west. Manifest Destiny is when the Pioneers had a
desire to move and settle in the west because the west offered new opportunities.
We are also watching a movie on Pioneers called Little House on the Prairie. This movie showed
how the Pioneers faced many troubles moving west. Some of the troubles such as: leaving family members behind, getting attacked
by Indians and facing blizzards were shown in the movie.
Text Savvy
By Jake C, Peter, Avi
Text Savvy is a method used to help us get a deeper understanding of what a
text says. Each day of the week we cover a new strategy with the same text. On the first day we preview and prepare the text. We scan the text
and notice the text features and/or format of the text. On the second day we monitor for meaning where
we examine and/or read the text and make sure we understand its meaning. On the third day we envision, where we try to
make a picture or movie in our minds of the text.
On the fourth day we infer and interpret, where we make inferences and analyze the text. On the last day we synthesize, where we make something or we think about and discuss a real life situation that is similar to the
text.
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
By Ethan and Brandon
In class we are reading a book called The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C.S Lewis. It is about
four kids named Peter, Susan, Edmund, and Lucy. Their parents sent them to a
professor’s house for safety during World War II because of the bombing in London. In the house,
Lucy finds a wardrobe that leads her to a magical world called Narnia. She met a faun named Mr. Tumnus.
When she gets back she tells the others but they don’t believe her. Later, they
all get to know that the magical world is real because all the children cross over into
Narnia. Every few chapters our class
has a quiz about the book. This book is fascinating! We hope you will read this
awesome book!
Science
By Jake S and Alexis
In science our class has been studying oceanography and different creatures that live in the ocean. We did many different and experiments about the ocean. For example, we did an oil spill experiment. We learned that oil spills can hurt animals in many different ways. We also dissected squid and examined fish. During the dissection we learned that if the squid has yellow inside it then it is a girl. We sorted sea creatures to find their similarities and differences, we also played a food chain game in the hallway outside the auditorium. We learned that different animals eat different plants to survive.
