April 3 - 7th

Welcome back from Spring Break!

Curriculum Update

We began the week by writing about your Spring Break.

All About Me

The students completed writing and illustrating their second All About Me paragraphs.

April is National Poetry Month! Throughout the month we will be reading and writing various forms of poetry.  This week we read acrostic poetry, discussing and recognizing the pattern, flow of ideas, and word choice involved in the poems.  During Writer's Workshop, the students developed acrostic poems for the word "kite."  They used exciting verbs and descriptive adjectives related to kites and spring in their poems.  These poems will become the tails on kites that the students will be making in art.

Math

This week in math we focused on using arrays to show multiplication concepts.  Students can more readily develop an understanding of multiplication if they see visual representations of the concepts.  For example, they can picture students in a marching band in equal rows or chairs set up in rows in an auditorium.  These arrangements all have something in common.  They are all in rows and columns.  An arrangement of objects, pictures or numbers in columns or rows is called an array.  Arrays are useful representations of multiplication concepts.  

This array has 4 rows with 3 stars in each row.  This is referred to as a 4 x 3 array.  This 4 x 3 array has 12 stars in it, or 4 x 3 = 12

Science

The students completed challenges #2 & #3 of our "Survivor" Testing and Building Unit.

Challenge #2

We made it safely across the crack in the earth, narrowly escaping the spewing lava.  As we continue to explore the island, we hear the roaring sound of a river nearby.  Approaching the river, we realize that it is too fast and deep to cross.  But we really don't want to turn around and go back to the beach.  We can see banana trees across the river with ripe, delicious bananas hanging from them.  Our stomachs growl at the sight of the fruit.  We decide that we need to cross the river to reach the bananas.  In order to cross the river we will have to build another bridge.  Nearby we see some tree bark that we can use as beams to support our bridge.  Our job is to test a variety of beam designs to see which one will work best for our foot bridge.

Discovery: Through this challenge the students learned that not all beam designs support the same mass.  The students discovered that the box girder was a stronger design that the accordion or the rectangle.

 

Challenge #3

Hooray! The beams for the foot bridge are strong enough for us to cross the fast moving river. We are finally able to enjoy a few bananas. Now that we have full bellies, we can concentrate on building some shelter. The fierce storm is still heading our way and we need somewhere to keep dry and get some rest for the night. Braydon has a brilliant idea and takes us back to our aircraft. We see that a few pieces of tin have come off the side of the plane during our emergency landing. Brianna and Colson decide to haul the tin to a small clearing in the trees. Deagan decides to bend the tin to make an arch for our shelter. The clouds look dark and heavy with rain. We need to make sure our arch is strong enough to hold the downpour. Does a wider gap cause the arched shelter to be stronger or weaker than a shorter gap? We need to test this so that we can stay dry for the night!

Discovery:  Through this challenge, the students learned that a wider gap causes an arch to be weaker than one with a shorter gap.

 

Art

During art the students created an optical illusion on their kites. Once the students are finished we will be attaching their acrostic poems as ribbons to the kites.  I will post the finished project next week!

VIP

We enjoyed getting to know our Very Important Person better this week!

Zirka Dancers

The entire school enjoyed a performance by the Zirku dancers from Calmar.

Congratulations to our Student of the Week!

Happy Birthday to Mr. D!