3-5-21

 Weekly News 3-5-21

Important Notes:

*Next week students can choose new library books on Tuesday!

Our Work this Week:

*In spelling we worked on common long e spelling patterns (ee and ea). We sorted these words, did dictation with them, worked on rhyming, proofreading and using them in context.    Next week we will work on long i patterns.  Learning the vowel teams take practice so this work will be ongoing.  Our grammar work reviewed past concepts and added suffixes, soft c/hard c sounds, adding detail to sentences, and generating nouns and adjectives about a subject.

*During math we practiced telling time and began measurement.  We read the book “How Big is a Foot” which helped us understand why we need standard measurement tools.  Then we got used foot long tools, pattern blocks and 12 inch rulers to practice measuring in inches.  We are learning to line the ruler up carefully at the beginning of an object to be accurate.  We had our initial lesson on the centimeter as well.  There was also lots of time to practice place value skills and trading sets of 10 for 100.

*In reading workshop we again intertwined two important comprehension skills; author’s purpose and author’s message. But this time we did it with nonfiction books.  Students enjoyed some creative informational books that were designed to inform but also entertain.  We used our reader’s notebooks to record our thinking and the big idea/main idea of each book. 

*Writing workshop and science were tied together this week. On Monday we set about the trials portion of our revised car and ramp experiment.  Each student chose one change to their procedure to see if their car would get more distance off of the ramp.  Some chose a bigger push and some chose a steeper ramp.  We carried out our trials, recorded data and analyzed our results before writing a conclusion.  Then we moved on to our next set of experiments - making catapults.  We built our catapults and took time flinging marshmallows off of them to see how they worked and adjust them as needed.  Then we got busy in our lab booklets, recording a hypothesis around this question, “Using the catapults we build will a ping pong ball or cotton ball go farther when released?”  We listed materials, collaborated on our procedures and set about finding out the answer.  Ping pong balls and cotton balls were flying through the air!  We are getting to be very good at measuring!  Next week we will revise this experiment and try it again.

*Library  was our special this week.  We spent the time hearing all 10 of this year’s Chickadee nominees with Ms. Luchies and Mrs. Pols.  We used our Chickadee booklet to rate them, name our favorite part and the author’s message for each book.  We will vote on our favorite!  

Ms. Luchies ran the Chickadee program with us this week!

Running ramp trials on bare floor

Lots of measuring!

In math we practiced measuring around the room.

We used "foot long" tools first.

Cool guy in shades!

Read a Shirt and.....a mask too!

PJ day was cold!  Inside recess gave us extra fun with our stuffies.

Catapult action!

We each made our own catapult following the same design.

First we tested it with marshmallows.

We had an unusual number of inside recesses this week - the kids love to draw, cut and create!

Reading and snuggling!

This was our 3rd experiment  - we are good at lab reports now!

We continued to work on author's purpose and message but with nonfiction books.

We record our data on data tables.

Sometimes you have to call in a helper!

We collaborated as a class to set our procedures.

We always start with question/hyphothesis!