Happy Hatch Day!

Spelling- We made a board game today and really drilled those spelling words from lists 10 and 11! They took turns spelling a word. If it was spelling correctly, they could roll the dice to make their way across the board. What a hit!

Grammar- Today, we learned about adverbs that tell “where”. Some examples are upstairs, away, far, sideways, backward, and so on. “Columbus traveled far.” Where did Columbus travel? He traveled “far”. Adverbs can get pretty tricky, but they are doing a great job mastering this material!

Reading- We read more about Macbeth and boy, are these kids into it! Because of the difficult language, we are reading a few lines and then stopping to discuss what is going on. In today's reading, the witches had cast their wicked spell on Macbeth. We played a game called “witches brew”, where we took turns adding ingredients to our stew. With each ingredient, the kids had to remember all of the previous ingredients, reciting them in our rhyme. It took a lot of brain power, but we ended up with a very long list of ingredients in our pot!

Math- We practiced making change today, as we took turns running make-believe shops! The kids took turns being shop owners and shoppers. They learned that, when they do not have exact change, they need to give more than the given price and get change back. They had to help each other count up the exact change. Work at home on this concept, as it was a tricky one. Sometimes, all you have is a $10, and you have to use it even if the item only costs $2.50! Also, work with them on counting back change, starting from the price of the item and counting up to the paid amount. It was a new concept, but they did great!

Agricultural Education- Today was the day!! These kiddos were ecstatic to see chicks hatching! We saw a chick that was already out, one that hatched before our eyes, one that was zipped, and one that had a pipped shell! I will keep you posted as to how many hatch out over the weekend! They should be all out of their shells by Sunday. Yay!

Science- After showing off our Biomes book and discussing interesting facts from each one, we explored food chains and webs. The students seem to have such great background knowledge in this topic, and are very excited about it. We learned that energy is produced by the plants (producers) and eaten by the herbivores or omnivores (consumers). These consumers pass the energy from the producers to other predators when they are eaten. Finally, the decomposers (bacteria, worms, fungi) return the nutrients to the ecosystem, like recyclers! The kids made their own food webs today... and what intricate webs they weave!

Social Studies-

Writing- In writing today, the kids read their revised scary stories out loud.   We all know it can be no fun rewriting our papers, but they did a fabulous job!  In social studies, they will be working on a social studies based writing assignment for next week.  They will be getting into character as they write about the life of a Native American!