Shaping Up

Spelling- We began our in-class week with an introduction to the new vocabulary and spelling list.  This week's list, like last week's, incorporates many words used in our next science, literature, and agriculture lessons.  We pronounced each word orally, as a group, and discussed their meanings.  We also looked specifically at the special sound "ch" as in "chorus" or "chemistry".  This sound pops up more than once in this week's list.

Grammar- In grammar today, we went over the sentences that the kids diagrammed at home on Friday.  These sentences each contained a direct and indirect object.  A few students were having a difficult time discerning which is which in the sentences.  It is important to remember that the direct object is the noun or pronoun that received the action from the verb.  The indirect object is the noun or pronoun that the direct object is "for".  This video lesson on Friday was thrown in for extra practice before continuing to diagram prepositional phrases that describe direct or indirect objects.  I graded Lesson 46 from Monday's video lesson.  We will continue to work on diagramming prepositional phrases in another video lesson tomorrow.

Math- The 3A class, using a video lesson, learned about the commutative and associative properties of multiplication at home yesterday.  Today, they continued to work with these properties.  After a multiplication quiz, which they then pasted into their math journals, they worked on different math cards.  Each card presented a different problem, each involving either the commutative property, the associative property, or both.  The students need to continue to study their multiplication tables at home, as memorizing them makes the application of more complicated math concepts far easier!  The 4A class continued their lesson in solid figures.  They worked through problems where they were given a diagram of a 3 dimension figure and had to draw its net, or its flat, unfolded "template".  Then, they were given the net and had to draw the figure that it would make if it were folded.  Finally, the class passed around different nets, each of a different color.  They folded them into their shapes, and filled in a chart for its number of edges, vertices, and faces.

Writing- The class broke into small groups, each armed with either a laptop or tablet.  Each group used factmonster.com to complete a worksheet on topic sentences and supporting details.  While they worked, Ms. Bev took turns sitting and working, individually, with students on their dinosaur assignments.  Once these are completed, the entire class will be moving on to the next type of writing: narrative.

Spanish- Sometimes, I get blown away with the class's ability to complete a difficult assignment.  Today, in Spanish, Ms. Rose gave the students sentences to translate.  The class got to work doing just that.  Using the terms that they learned so far, as well as the lessons that Ms. Rose has taught on feminine/masculine articles, sentence formation, etc, the class hammered out some English translations! 

Social Studies- In social studies today, the class was given a quiz over vocabulary from the Western Mining lesson.  It was obvious that the class has been studying!  Almost everyone made a 100!  After their Vocabulary Challenge, they began working on a Western Mining crossword puzzle, which they will complete at home.  They also read about the Comstock Lode, which was the greatest single deposit ever mined in the United States. 

Agriculture-  No, it's not typically an agriculture day.  However, I did use a bit of the kids' free time to introduce them to our upcoming agriculture project.  They just loved those cute agriculture videos that parody songs and sing about how great farming is.  Well, these kids are going to, you guessed it, make their own!  Yes, even those whose faces turned bright red at the thought of making a fool of themselves in front of my little video camera will come around.  I released the song, sung the first verse and chorus, and planted the seeds of excitement (or anxiety)!

Lists from Winter Garden Fear Factor

Art- In art class today, Ms. Nancy helped the kids finish up their projects from last week.  They had painted over their works of art with red tempura paint.  Today, they scratched off the dried paint, and the results are great!  They also took the crayon work they had started last week and covered it with India Ink.  So many of our projects this year are multi-stepped ones.  It is exciting to see the kids when their artwork makes an unexpected turn!