Learning Updates 11.18.11

Dear Families,

Happy Friday. Here's a quick overview of what we've been up to this week. But first...a reminder that report cards will come home with your child on Wednesday 11/23. Also, in your child's Friday Folder today are a number of graded assignments I'd been holding on to for report cards.

Math

• Finished Unit 4 and took the test
• We've now moved in to Unit 5, focused on big numbers, estimation and computation. Today we learned about extended multiplication facts, which help us solve problems like 40*80=? Ask your student how.
• Bonus--have your student write "pH test" on a note and give to me by Monday for 10 Grizzly Bucks. It's easy.

Science

• We ventured further in to EiE, doing some real environmental engineering
• We read "Tehya's Story," which set the stage for our work. Ask your student about the story
• Today we simulated working as environmental engineers hired by a fictitious town of Greenville, which has been experiencing pollution problems. Each small group of students performed pH tests on various water samples taken from around the town. We'll do more with this next week.

Reading

• Focused on high interest non-fiction articles in Time for Kids, and took a quiz
• Learned about and examined figurative language
• Took a mock MSP reading test, which I can show you at parent conferences

Writing

• Worked more on the components of effective leads
• Looked at adding scenes that are flashbacks of the past or flash-forwards of the future
• Examined mentor texts for how to bring more of the internal (thoughts, feelings, questions in our head) part of the story to our pieces

Examining the pH strips during EiE (Engineering is Elementary: A Slick Solution)

Taking a sample

Matching up against the pH chart. This sample from the Greenville car factory is somewhat acidic. We may have some pollution!

Learning Update 11.13.11

Dear Families,


What a short week we had, but still had a lot of things going on!  I hope you enjoyed the three-day weekend as we celebrated Veteran's Day. Here's the latest...


Science

• Students designed and began pollution experiments on either acid rain, fertilizer or road salt in our special plants-only experimental eco-columns
• Took an ecosystems quiz
• This week we'll put ecosystems on the back burner as the pollution experiments play out over the next few weeks. In the meantime we'll start a related unit called EiE (Engineering is Elementary--A Slick Solution: Cleaning an Oil Spill--Ecosystems & Environmental Engineering for Elementary Students. More on this soon!

Math

• Continued working with decimals, using base 10 blocks to represent values in to the thousandths place, played fishing for digits game, reviewed the metric system and practiced measuring objects in the classroom
• We'll take the Unit 4 test later this week

Reading

• We continued our focus on schema (activating background knowledge) as students read about the role of decomposers in an ecosystems. Prior to reading we charted what they know & want to know, and afterward, what they learned
• Finished our read aloud--The Gollywhopper Games and started a new read aloud Listening for Lions, a past Global Reading Challenge book. 

Writing

• Moving toward a seed story idea--ask your child what their story idea is. It's helpful to have them orally tell you the story ("air write" the story for you)
• Discussed balancing internal/external details, stretching/zooming in on the heart of our stories and not unimportant parts, asking ourselves what we're really trying to say, and looking at mentor texts for ideas--especially for ways to write leads
• Fun Bonus--your child can earn 10 Grizzly Bucks if you have them write and bring in to Mr. Herzberg the word "EiE" on a note.

Learning Updates 11.4.11

Here's the latest from our classroom

Last Friday we had an Art Docent Lesson. Thank you to Lisa Purdon and Christina Elin, Jolene Strait, Debbie Spoto, and Kim Foster.

Students learned about Rousseau and created oil pastel ecosystem drawings on black construction paper.

Mr. Ciraulo worked with students on problem solving. We examined and critiqued a student example, learning from it. Students will redo the problem, this time using much of what we learned.

Math

• Continued working with decimals--using base 10 blocks to model ones/tenths/hundreths, practicing correct notation, comparing/ordering decimals, estimating with decimals, adding/subtracting decimals, and working with decimals in money

Reading

• Continued our focus on main idea, using a picture book, Brave Irene, and continued our schema (background knowledge) focus by listening to a short book on tape. We'll follow up next week by revising our schema when students can actually see the pictures in the book.
• Read with our second grade reading buddies in Miss Evanger's class 

 Writing

• Learned about making revisions sooner this time than in our first unit--using what we know now about great personal narrative writing. Also talked about setting a balance between external (things you can see and hear) and internal factors (thoughts, feelings, emotions inside you) in our stories
• Completed our fourth grade personal narrative fall writing prompt--a chance for us to see growth in students' writing
• Bonus. Have your student write "pollution" on a sticky note or paper and give it to me by Monday 11/7 for 10 Grizzly bucks!

Science

• We've read about terrestrial animals, how seeds germinate, and three common sources of pollution in ecosystems--acid rain, road salt, and fertilizer.
• Students began designing their group's pollution experiment on either salt, vinegar (acid rain), or fertilizer
• SOAR (in-class field trip) brought a couple birds of prey and talked with students about food webs. It was a high interest, great tie in with our ecosystems studies. Thank you for funding this!

SOAR presentation right before the birds came out!