Side Splitting Science

Spanish- Today, the kids practiced played Bingo to keep on practicing those numbers 1-100. They discussed restaurant night... the name of their restaurant, what they will serve, and all kinds of other fun things! They also finished their insignas for their costumes.

Spelling- Mr. Chris helped out today, combining spelling with some physical activity! We will finish up with list 7 tomorrow. All of the kids agree that this list was easier than last week... I think that means we're doing something right!

Reading- We are almost finished with Indian in the Cupboard! Again, this was a very difficult book. We talked about how books make us create images in our minds.... as if we are watching it on t.v.! They chose the most vivid scene for them and illustrated it. We will be taking a breather with a lighter weigh book for the next few weeks. Title to follow!

Grammar- After practicing our simple sentence diagramming, we learned some things about adjectives that we didn't know before! Adjectives tell what kind, which one, how many, and whose. They learned these with a chant that we said together.... “Adjectives tell what kind (clap), which one (clap), how many (clap), and whose (clap). We discussed the first 3 types, but we will save “whose” for Tuesday.

Here's an example of each type that we discussed today:

What kind? (playful dog, cold milk, brown cow)

Which one? (this cat, that store, those dogs)

How many? (first car, third sign, next year, last night)

Math- We are taking our comparison of numbers and applying it to money. Sometimes, comparing money can be tricky! $4.88 is greater than $4.75, but $4.88 is equal to 488 cents!

Science- Yowza! What an exciting day in science. Was it the ultra-interesting discussion of Animal Life Cycles? Was it the comparison of animals that reproduce by means of two parents versus animals that only need one parent to reproduce? Was it the research we did on the gross life cycle of houseflies? No! It was the hilarity that ensues from the word “pupa”. Yes, it seems that “pupa” sounds an aweful lot like “poop”, which is just plain hilarious! When you spell pupa, do you know what it begins with? P... U! As in... “Pee ew!” If laughter is good for the soul, then our Animal Life Cycles discussion was a day at the Soul Spa!

As an optional assignment for next Thursday, the kids can make a “wanted”, “lost”, or a “found” poster about a specific animal. You will need to research the life cycle of that animal, and use your poster to teach others what you've learned. Use the different stages to make your posters fun! For example: You can explain that you lost your caterpillar, but it could look like any of the stages of a butterfly's life cycle. Use pictures, print outs, drawings, etc to show information about your animal! Do NOT go to WalMart for poster board on Wednesday night... We would love for you to bring it in on Thursday, but this is optional!

Social Studies- Today, Mr. Dennis and the kids did a map activity about Columbus' first voyage. They also learned more about the Columbian exchange, critiquing the positive results and negative consequences. We also read the amazing papers that the students wrote about Columbus' successes and failures. What a fantastic job!

Writing- In other writing news, we had a big sharing time today. Each student took turns sharing their writing assignments with the class. We really worked on creating a positive writing environment: after each student read, the others took turns sharing what they liked most about the paper. We are still not digging in to the nitty gritty of paper writing, but trying to get them to hopefully learn to enjoy (or at least not to dread!) the act of writing!