Learning Updates 3.30.12

Evaporation experiments in progress--surface area (front), type of liquid (back left), adding an object--sponge vs no sponge (back right)

Air movement--fan vs. no fan. Other experiments that groups conducted: temperature--fridge vs. room temp., and light--dark cupboard vs window sill vs fluorescent light.

100ml of different liquids. Did type of liquid affect rate of evaporation? Ask your student. Groups presented their findings and conclusions on Friday.

Writing procedures and materials lists--before conducting their experiments, groups had to write a detailed plan as well as a hypothesis of what they expected to find.

Writer's Workshop debrief and sharing. Students were eager to share the leads they wrote for their realistic fiction narratives. They envisioned with a partner the sort of story this sets up and discussed whether that matches where they think the story actually needs to go. Students are more apt to make these front end revisions before they've written great volumes and are committed to that story.

Science Fair was last week and we had some great projects:

Art Docent--thank you to Lisa Purdon and the Grand Ridge PTSA for a great opportunity. Instead of creating art this time, students had a chance to view a special exhibit from the Bellevue Art Museum. Students did some in depth thinking and had a great discussion about each of the seven pieces in the exhibit.

Recorder Concert. The culmination of the fourth grade recorder unit was a concert for the school in the afternoon on Tuesday and also a concert for parents in the evening.

Other Odds and Ends

• Finished Math Unit 8 and started Unit 9 on fractions, decimals, and percents
• Math tests are headed home today
• We're making great progress on our stories in writing, learning about character traits, story mountains, and leads
• Focused on visualizing strategy and responding to our reading. Ask your child how "Still Pictures," "At the Movies," and "Experience the Story" work. These are the three different response strategies I modeled and we practiced this week.
• Finished up our Matter unit in science