Here's What We've Been Up To...
2nd Graders...
We began our day by counting the money collected so far for the Monarch Sanctuary. This was a great money/math lesson! Thanks to all who donated so far. We will be reporting the final total soon!
We finished our symbolic butterflies and they will be “migrating” to our Mexican friends this weekend. You can see pictures of our butterflies on the Class of 2019 page.
We are busy with our jobs as Citizen Scientists for the Journey North Foundation and continue to track the Monarch migration on our hallway map. SO far, they have been sighted as far south as Texas. Based on our observations so far, we made predictions as to what new states we think the Monarchs will be sighted in next week. Ask us about this!
Next, we read the book The Very Hungry Caterpillar and then did a project concerning caterpillars, specifically a Monarch. Ask us how many pairs of legs a Monarch caterpillar has (8), how many total legs (16), What they have on their heads (horns), the size of a newborn caterpillar (1/8 inch), what the first thing is that it does (eats its egg), how many times it usually molts (4), and how long it remains, on average, in its chrysalis before emerging into a butterfly (9 days)! We know a LOT about this!!
We made our very own caterpillars (you should have seen them by now). Each one had the correct number of legs and was colored correctly. Ask your child what the colors of the caterpillars can tell scientists. We then measured our caterpillars and had a great lesson on addition with regrouping when Mrs. F. challenges us to tell her how long the caterpillars would be all together if they were in a caterpillar parade! We did a great job and will continue to practice this tough math concept every week!!
We then had our Spanish lesson. Check out our Spanish notebook and have us practice on you at home!
We ended the day very creatively by working on our creative writing and then playing Batik and Doodle Dice.
Super day kiddos!
3rd Graders...
We began our day with some brainbuster activities of our choice. Ask us about Perplexors which are great logic activities.
We then explored our red folders which we will have in our classrooms for if we need additional activities to do during the day. We really got into this folder and found the activities to be pretty exciting.
Athenian Secret this week took us to the Commercial Agora which was a huge market place in Ancient Greece. Our activity for the day was to figure out what our team name was worth in drachmas. As us about this. During this time, Mrs. F. modeled some strategies for us like...... how estimating would be useful for this problem, how to apply logic and number sense, and very useful shortcuts to adding large numbers with regrouping. It was a very productive day.
We completed our creative writing stories today and were anxious to share them with you. They are quite good and very entertaining.
We also had Spanish and learned some new phrases. Make sure to ask us about this!
We got started on some attribute block activities and then blogged and that was when we realized the day was over already! Time certainly flies for us! See ya next time!
4th Graders...
We began the day with a great riddle concerning logic and lateral thinking! We even brought home a copy for you! They insisted!!
We then shared some of our stories and they are terrific! Great creative thinking gang and way to rise to the challenge I gave you! Be proud!
Gold Rush was quite exciting this week! We did a review in which the teams could earn more gold. We then were faced with some major decisions regarding our route choices to the west. We had 5 choices and they all offered something different and enticing but laced with dangers. We had the tough task of evaluating each one and weighing the probable consequences associated with each one. Ask us what we chose and what consequence this decision held for our team. The first team to get to Golden Gultch is awarded first choice of claims! We also wrote our first log entry and will get them back next week. We earn gold for these also! Next week, we will make our mining purchases, stake our claims, and start a minin’! Stay tuned! Ask us what we learned this week..........one thing for sure is that ALL decisions carry consequences!!!
Great work kids!
We ended the day with bloggin’ and gamin’! It was a super day, as usual!!
5th Graders...
We began the day with a great riddle concerning logic and lateral thinking! We even brought home a copy for you! They insisted!!
We then continued/finished/revised/typed our Harris Burdick stories. Mrs. F. told us her surprise.......we are going to send our stories to the official Harris Burdick website where they pick new stories each month to post on their website! They then randomly choose people to receive autographed copies of Chris Van Allsburg books and other Harris Burdick inspired items! How cool is that? Our stories are shaping up great so we really have a great shot at this! Stay tuned!
Murder Hollywood style! That’s right, we are deeply entrenched in solving a Hollywood murder! Detective Parker botched this case so now Captain Fiedler has assigned us to the case of the murder of Academy Award winning film producer, Storm Van Harsky. This case requires us to understand relevant and irrelevant information, conflicting information, and alibis. We need to be able to substantiate our findings and recognize the difference between valid and invalid assumptions. We are really using a lot of logic and lateral thinking skills here and are doing a great job making inferences and thinking deductively. We will be generating our major suspect list next week. Ask us about this mystery.............we love it!!
Galleon was packed with info this week. We learned all about the Dark Ages, the Crusades, and early exploration. Have us fill in some details for you.......interesting time period, that’s for sure!
We ended the day with creative game time and some of us blogged. Till next time...........great jobs kids...........adios!!
*Question of the Week!*
Look out Survivor game show.......I’ve got some great contestants for you! The kids did a terrific job on their question of the week concerning being stranded on a desert island for 100 days and only being able to take 5 things with them. Very clever and logical thinking! Well done gang!
Mucho Math
(Formally known as Math Push-in)
3rd > Arith-me-tickle, mental math, logic problem solving, and dollar words will be on the math menu this week!
4th > Math perplexors, mental math, logic problem solving, and palindromes will be on the math menu this week!
5th > Math perplexors, mental math, and logic problem solving will be on the math menu this week along with Fibonacci Numbers!
Thinkers, Inc.
We had a great time at our first fifth grade session. Ask us about The Mystery at the Mall, Numskill, 24, and Doodle Dice. Great fun gang and well done! See ya next time!
Math Moments
5th grade cycle, phase 2
Counting Crocodiles > An exercise in measurement, number sense, algebra, and computation! FUN!
BONUS POINTS!!
BIG NEWS
50 Bonus Point mark!
BIG congrats to our 50 point earners.
HUMUNGOUS NEWS!!
100 Bonus Point mark!
Way to go......
Be very proud!!
GIGANTIC NEWS!! 150 Reached!
200 BONUS POINTS........AMAZING WORK!
250!
**The 300 mark has been reached!!
Who will be next???
250 has been accomplished!! Amazing!!
The 300 Summit has been reached!!
Unbelievable!!
OUT OF THIS WORLD!
350!!