March 20 - 24th

It's hard to believe that spring break is almost here. The students have been working very hard and they are looking forward to a much needed break.

Following is a curricular update for the week:

Writer's Workshop

This week during Writer's Workshop the students created the heroes and villains for their fairy tales. They were also asked to focus on a magical element for both.

Words Their Way - This week we tried a new activity to practice our vocabulary. The students were asked to randomly pick words from their list to "draw and label." This was an excellent activity to really get the students thinking about the meaning of their words.

Math

We continued to work on our multiplication skills during math this week.  The following goals were covered: 

Multiplying by Skip Counting - I demonstrated skip counting on the number line and then related this representation of repeated addition to multiplication for the students.

Science

The students were so excited to complete their first Survivor challenge.

Challenge 1:  We have landed safely near shore and made our way to the closest beach. Ahead of us is a dense jungle and we see a huge storm heading our way, so we decide to seek shelter. As we reach the edge of the forest, we notice a large crack in the Earth. Ava takes a step forward to take a closer look. It is very deep and looks like it may have been caused by an earthquake. She tells us that she can not even see the bottom. There is also hot lava spewing from the crack. The crack is not too wide, but we definitely can not jump over it. We will need to build something in order to cross onto the other side. We have decided to make a foot bridge out of bamboo we see nearby. We need to figure out if bending the bamboo to make a square frame or bending it into an arch will be stronger. We should remember that this structure needs to hold each classmate and teacher one by one as we step over the crack.

The students engaged in an activity that compares an arch shape to a square shape in order to see similarities and differences in the strengths and weaknesses of the design.  They discovered

 that arch shaped designs are very strong and support more mass than square shapes do.  The students concluded that they should bend the bamboo into an arch shape in order for their foot bridge to be strong enough to cross.

Art

The students finished their bridge silhouettes by painting the background using watercolours.