Glass Half Full

Spanish- Today, we began our unit on “washing up”! We will be working on terms used for taking a bath, washing hands, washing hair, etc. Next week, we will do a crazy activity with these words, so be sure to practice at home, kids!

Spelling- To review our spelling words today, the kids elected to play “popcorn”. Each student curled up into a little ball (kernel) and POPPED up when it was their turn to spell a word! The “pan” must have been awfully hot today, cause there was a whole lot of poppin' going on!

Poetry- I introduced our next poetry project today. The kids will be illustrating their poem, “Hide and Seek”, and I will compile the pictures and their recitation into a video! They will be working on one illustration at home and I will collect them on Tuesday. I would like to film the recitations on Thursday, so practice, practice, practice!

Grammar- After a review of their at-home work, we learned about a new part of speech today: conjunctions! A conjunction is a word that joins words or a group of words together. The three common conjunctions are : and, but, & or. Not only did we learn about conjunctions, we learned how to diagram conjunctions that are in the predicate! Often, the class will look ahead in the book, commenting on how “weird” those really hard diagrams look. They are the unknown. They must be SO tricky! I love the excitement that these kids have whenever they learn a new concept and realize that they are slowly tackling all of those pages that used to look so difficult to them!

Math- After a review of long multiplication, the class worked on another multiplication mosaic picture! Again, they worked diligently to fill in the squares on the grid. This time, they discovered the image was of a person!

Science- Today's topic was: sound. We learned about sound waves, vibrations, and how our ear hears sounds. We also learned about amplitude, volume, frequency, and pitch. The kids have a handout with useful information to help them continue the lessons at home! The class was able to experience how vibrations create sound by hitting a cymbal and a drum. They loved holding the cymbal still with one hand and noticing the difference in sound! After more sound wave demonstrations, the class divided into two groups. Using only 6 glasses and some water, each group created musical instruments and played a song for the class! We heard Jingle Bells, Hot Cross Buns, and even an original composition!

Social Studies- My oh my! These kids are hooked on history right now! The American Revolution has captured their interest and imagination. Today, they worked on a timetable for Independence. After the review exercise, they read through a script. We had a narrator, Sam Adams, John Hancock, and a chorus of angry colonists shouting in unison, “We have to get independence!!!” I'm not sure if the founding fathers had such a high volume (or such funny “grown up” voices)!

Writing- Our art and writing classes have intersected as we work on our story quilts! Today, we went over our rough drafts, discussing revisions and edits that should be made. We will keep working on these at home, and will try our best to have final drafts finished by Tuesday. You would not believe the sewing abilities of this class! They have learned to sew fabric squares together, with needle and thread, and will be working to complete their patchwork quilt borders in art class on Tuesday.