February 22 - 26

VIP

Thank you to Miss L for being such a great VIP this week!

Language Arts

During Writing Workshop this week we focused on "Sensory Imagery and Settings." Sensory Imagery is a writing technique based on the five senses. Using verbs to describe what is seen, heard, felt, smelled, and tasted draws the reader into the story. In the setting, this technique helps the reader to feel transported into the place where the story takes place by helping the reader to feel, hear, see, smell what the main character does.

Effective settings establish the tone of a story and engage the reader’s curiosity and imagination. Using Amber on the Mountain by T. Johnston, the students were able to hear how the author used sensory imagery to describe the setting.

"But as a regular thing, as a permanent place, this was where he would choose to be—here where the dogwood and redbud played hide and seek between the oaks and evergreens, and the sun flung itself in golden streams through the trees to splash warmly at their feet. 

Amber lived on a mountain so high, it poked through the clouds like a needle stuck in down. Trees bristled on it like porcupine quills. And the air made you giddy—it was that clear."

After modeling writing using sensory imagery, the students developed their own "ocean" settings.

Reader's Theatre Group

Math

We continued working on multiplication this week. The students used doubles and doubling to multiply mentally.

The students also played a game called Monster Bump to practice multiples of 3.

Science

What a success! We haven't been on the island for very long but have already found a bit of food and now we have some shelter. We do have one problem though! The rain has started to come down quickly and it is beginning to make small puddles around our sleeping area. We are also worried that with the amount of rain falling, the river not far from us may begin to flood. We need to raise the area where we are going to sleep so that it is not on the ground. We head back to the plane and grab another large piece of tin for the floor of our shelter. It won't be the softest place to sleep but at least we will be out of the puddles and safe if the river floods. We drag the tin back to our shelter and start thinking about how we are going to raise it above the ground. Tyson decides that we should use some tree stumps near by to make a pillar to hold up the floor. Which design will hold the most weight? Should we use one larger pillar in the center or four smaller pillars in each of the corners of our tin floor?

Conclusion: Four smaller pillars hold more mass than one large pillar in the middle.

Pink Shirt Day

On Wednesday, February 24th Robina Baker students and staff wore pink shirts to encourage everyone to practice kindness and to promote anit-bullying.

I read the book "Howard B. Wigglebottom Learns About Bullies" to the students. Howard was being bullied at school. His intuition told him to let the teacher know. Instead he chose different strategies and they all failed. He finally told the teacher and she took action to make him feel okay and safe. This story brought on a great class discussion about how to deal with bullying at school.

Wrinkled Heart Activity

To reinforce the concept of empathy I had the students participate in an activity called "Wrinkled Heart." I gathered the students on the reading carpet. I told them that I wanted to talk to them about how hurtful words can be. I gave a few examples of how people have hurt my feelings and then invited all the students to tell me about a time that someone hurt their feelings. As each student talked about how they have had their feelings hurt, I wrinkled the heart a little. I explained that I put a fold or wrinkle in the heart for every hurt feeling they told me. We talked about how when someone hurts our feelings, it leaves a wrinkle in our hearts that never comes out. After everyone had a chance to share I tried to unfold the heart. But no matter how hard I tried to straighten all the wrinkles, some always remain.  Then I read the following poem:

"Before you speak, think and be smart. It's hard to fix a wrinkled heart!"

Our wrinkled heart is now up on the wall as a reminder to always use kind words.

We're Famous!

3D made the cover of the Devon Dispatch this week wearing our Pink Shirts!

Art

This week in art the students followed "how to draw" booklets to create Tunisian Animal Trading Cards. The students absolutely loved drawing the animals and showing the class using the document camera.  Once the cards are completed, including writing facts about the animals on the back of the card, they will have the opportunity to trade with 3A and 3B.

Happy Birthday Mr. G!

The students continue to fly around the world with our home reading program!

Winner of the Wrist Band Challenge this week!

3D loves cashing in their DOJO points! Miss M used some of her points to sit at the teacher's desk for a day.

Other students chose to bring a device for the day!