Science you can SQUISH.

Spelling-  We played the hamburger game with our spelling words today.  It seems that instead of pretending to eat the imaginary hamburgers that they build, the new thing is to pretend to store them away... for a huge imaginary food fight at the end of the review!  Imaginary food fights are the cleanest kinds!

Poetry-  We did some in-class poetry review today.  We will be working on memorizing "My Shadow" in the next couple weeks.  Hopefully, we can do a video for it at the end of the month!

Grammar- We had a review day for predicate nominatives and direct objects.  We went over yesterday's homework together, making any changes that were needed.  Today's review really helped them to understand the difference between the two.  We will be doing even more review at home on Friday and Monday, so we don't forget what we have learned!

Reading- By popular demand, we read another chapter in our reading book.  The kids are eating this stuff up, learning vocabulary, AND reinforcing our Earth science material.  I love it!  I gave each of them a composition notebook today with some vocabulary words written down inside.  These are the words that they may not know for chapters 4 and 5, which they will be reading at home. 

Math- We are working on multiplication and division word problems.  Although these can be tricky, it helps to just remind the kids to not over think them.  For instance, if John has $32 and John has four times as much money as Ricky, then it doesn't make sense that the answer would be 32 x 4!  With practice, they are getting better and better at applying the right equation to the word problem.

Science- We learned about the three types of rocks today:  igneous, metamorphic, and sedimentary.  To illustrate how metamorphic rocks are formed by heat and pressure deep in the Earth, we used Play-dough!  We created "rocks" with different "mineral grains".  The students had to use a ruler to measure the width and length of each "grain" in centimeters and record their findings on a chart.  Then, they applied pressure to their "rock".  Final measurements were taken.  They answered questions (in complete sentences) about their results, comparing them to the creation of metamorphic rocks!  Math + Science + Crafts = AWESOME!

Social Studies-  The students learned more about life in the New England colonies today.  They learned about exports, imports, and trading between the colonists and other countries.  I have been amazed at how much their social studies lessons are increasing their reading retention and comprehension!  I will send home the kids' display boxes for them to continue to work on.  Help them to research those colonial occupations.  They will type up the information that they would like to share, print it out, cut it out, and paste it to the back of their display box.  The front should have the title of their occupation as well as a picture, hand drawn or printed. 

Writing-  Ms. Sharon brought out the students' "Pay It Forward" papers today.  They discussed each paper and talked about ways to improve them... as well as to expand them into three paragraph papers.  Now that we are into the second semester, we explained that they will need to step up the effort that they put into their writing!  Although I thought the stress of this concept would bring them to tears, I know that they will rise to expectations and, as painful as it may be, be writing those three paragraph papers by the end of the year!