Worms

     I am sure that most of you have already heard from your children that we have worms in our classroom.  Today the students were introduced to the worms and got to look at them using magnifying glasses.  We also have created a worm farm and hopefully we will be able to observe them tunneling through the dirt.  We will be doing various activities with the worms and observing our worm farm throughout the week.

Week of April 29

     This week we will be having a math test and our Unit 7 spelling test on Friday, May 3.  Progress reports will also be going home on Wednesday, May 1.

     This week we will begin learning about the different sacraments in religion class.  We will also continue to learn about how we can grow as disciples of Jesus.

     In Superkids this week we will be working on ar, or, and ear trickers.  Friday we talked about how these letters do not always make the sounds that we learned about in Unit 5, sometimes they make the er sound.  Students have finished writing their biopoems and we will be putting them into Wordle using the computer lab.  This week we will also be reading three different stories in our readers and working on identifying reality/fantasy, sequence of events, and drawing conclusions from what we read.  We will also continue to practice identifying main idea and cause and effect using our interactive SMARTboard games.

     In Math this week students will be working on fractions, and we will be making fraction kites.  They will also work on measuring and drawing line segments to the nearest inch, geometric solids (cylinders and cubes), bar graphs, and problem solving strategies.  We will also continue to practice our math skills using our ipads, IXL, xtramath, and our SMARTboard games. 

     During Science this week we will be doing various experiments/activities involving worms.  Students read in our Super-Duper magazine last week about different types of worms and where they can be found.  We will be making a worm farm where hopefully we will be able to see them making tunnels.  We will also begin working on our last inquiry unit Creature Features.

     For our Community Inquiry Unit this week students will be choosing a community worker to write about, making a map of our community, creating a business that they would like to be in our community, and working on putting together our scrapbook.

Geography website

     We are currently working on map skills in Social Studies with our Community Inquiry Unit.  Yesterday we looked at some geography games that involve using directions and maps.  Students can play these games at home too.  The website is
http://www.mywonderfulworld.org/toolsforadventure/games/index.html

Flower Update

     This morning when the kids came in and then throughout the school day, they noticed that the white carnation flowers and the celery had turned the color of the water they were in.  This was able to show us that the stem does carry the water to the rest of the plant and whatever is in the water will affect the plant.  The students also noticed that the red and green colors worked the best.

Colored Flowers

     In Science we have been talking about the parts of a plant and what each part does for the plant.  Today we put 3 flowers and some celery in cups of colored water.  We will see how the stem of each plant carries the water to the rest of the plant. 
     When I left school today, two of the flowers were already very lightly turning the color of the water that they are in.  It is hard to tell in the pictures, we will see what they look like tomorrow.

Lollipop and Crazy Hair Day

     Today the students got to enjoy lollipops during the day and came to school with crazy hair.  Here is our crazy hair.

Wizard of Oz Week

     This week is Wizard of Oz week.  We will be doing different activities each day.  The schedule of activities is below:

• Monday:  Write "Why is OLV like home"
• Tuesday:  Lollipop and Crazy Hair day
• Wednesday:  Pajama Day
• Thursday:  Game Day - We will be playing Wizard of Oz Bingo
• Friday:  Wizard of Oz Movie

Week of April 15

     In religion this week we will be learning about the pope and bishops and how they care for the church.

     We will be having our Unit 5 spelling test on Monday.  In our Super-Duper Issue this week students will be learning about hot stuff such as fires, the center of the earth, lava, and lightning.  We will begin working on pattern words with 'oi' and 'oy' in Unit 6 this week.  Students wrote their own weather poems last week and next we will be looking at writing biopoems.

     In Math this week we will be learning about adding 8 to a number, geometric solids (cubes and spheres), adding 3 numbers, and using bills to pay for items.  The time book project is also due this week, Tuesday.

     For Science this week we will be continuing to learn about the parts of a plant.  Last week students worked on identifying the parts of a plant and what plants need in order to live.  They drew pictures to show the parts of a flower.  This week we will be learning more about what each part does for the plant.  In our lab this week we will be trying to create "lightning".

     In Social Studies this week students will be continuing to learn about maps and directions.  We will be playing a game where students need to find hidden pictures on a map using directions to identify where they think the picture is located.  We are also going to be starting to create our 3D model of our community.

Week of April 8

     I hope everyone had a great spring break!

     In religion this week we will begin talking about our Church leaders including the Pope and bishops.  We will discuss their roles in the Church and how they care for the Church.

     In Superkids we will continue working on r-controlled vowels (ar, or, er, ir, ur).  We will also be reading a lot from our readers this week and looking at drawing conclusions from what we have read, identifying the main idea and supporting details, understanding characters, and recalling details from a story. 

     In math we will be having a math test on Thursday, April 11.  This week we will also work on comparing numbers using comparison symbols (>, =, <), dividing objects by sharing them, estimating and measuring capacity, and problem solving strategies.

     During Science we will work on identifying living and nonliving things using a SMARTboard activity.  We will also begin looking at plants as living things.  Students will be learning about the different parts of plants and their functions and what plants need to survive.

     In Social Studies we will be reviewing our definition of what a community is that we wrote before break, as well as look at maps and identifying N, S, E, and W.

     I have also gotten some new interactive games for the SMARTboard as well as other games students can play in groups or individually during center time or when they have finished their work early.