Our Writing Celebration

The students learned about opinion writing. This unit is a little more difficult than the previous unit on narrative writing. Students were expected to write an opinion about a book and give reasons that support their opinion. Some students wrote strong beginnings that not only gave their opinion, but also would try to convince the reader of it. Students were expected two write at least two reasons and a few sentences about each one.  There were many mini-lessons to help students be able to write about some of the different parts of a book. Some students wrote about favorite characters, funny parts, the pictures, the title and the lesson/message in the book. The fun part of this writing unit is that students were talking/writing about books and excited to read books recommended by a friend. Today, we shared our book nominations with Mr. Jobst's class and tomorrow we're sharing with Miss Fendler's class. During our celebration tomorrow, the students will have an opportunity to tell one thing that they're proud of as a writer and the rest of us will cheer for them!

Social Studies - Unit 3

The students are learning about culture, customs and traditions. This is a great time to talk about your family's customs and traditions. We talked about ancestors and immigrants. We talked about different holiday celebrations too. We will be learning about "Ways of Living", however this unit will not be tested. When we return from winter break will be learning about economics. 

Lost & Found Leaders

The students enjoy being Lost and Found Leaders.  The students help by rolling out The Lost and Found racks each day.  Also, two students are on the morning announcements to advertise some of the lost items. On Thursday, we organized all the items by color in hopes of making it easier for students. (We're hoping to get another shorter hanging rack as the green rack is just too tall for most kids to look through easily.)
On Friday, groups of students used the iMovie app on our iPads and created movie trailers to advertise some of the items.  Each group was in charge of a different color group.  Several groups have finished and I have successfully uploaded two of them to YouTube.  

Check out two of the trailers here:

Lost & Found Movie 1 - Black

Lost & Found Movie 2 - Blue

 I sent the link to classroom teachers so they can show them in their class in hopes of more lost items being returned to their owners.

Science Investigation

We set up an investigation trying to find out if ice cube would melt at the same rate. We had two cups of water and added salt to one of the cups. Then we added ice cubes to both cups. We turned on the timer. Many of us were surprised when the ice cube melted faster in the plain water - 6 minutes compared to the ice cube melting in 9 minutes in the salt water. The students used all of their science skills during this investigation.

Math Review and Test

We have finished our chapter on numbers to 1,000. We will review in class tomorrow and the test will be on Friday, December 11th. 

Scientists Draw Conclusions!

The students worked with partners and counts the seconds it took a to put the chips into a cup one at a time.  Then they tried it again and the other partner put the chips in one at a time. The results were similar. They also had a chance to discuss how they could improve their test. They learned that when scientists repeat the same procedure they often get similar conclusions. 

Scientists Use Tools

The students explored which tools work better. The had a meter stick and a metric ruler and they had to measure the thickness of a book, height of a desk, and length of our white board. They had to decide which tool would work better. They decided that measuring small objects with a ruler because a ruler is easier to move and hold. Also, it is easier to measure larger objects with a meter stick because you had to move it fewer times. They also had a chance to use a hand lenses and to see a teeny tiny picture in their book! Fun, fun, fun at science time today.