Trapezoids and Transmitters

Spanish- We will be wrapping up our Spanish class next week! I cannot believe how fast our year with Ms. Joanne has flown by. Thank you, Ms. Joanne for a great year! See you again in the fall, if we don't visit you at Minter's Farm first!

Spelling- We have an Easter related spelling list this week, and most of the words are fairly easy. Today, we focused on those difficult words, as well as the cursive letters “u” and “v”, as well as “a” and “o”. These have been tricky for a lot of the class, and these words happened to give them a lot of great practice!

Poetry- We have been discussing Shel Silverstein this week.... which the kids find as hilarious as I did when I was their age! After we read one of his poems, the kids wrote a poem all their own. I am so pleased that they are finally finding writing to be fun!

Grammar- We have been learning about direct quotations recently. Specifically, we discussed how to punctuate direct quotations at the beginning of a sentence versus the end. After a review of direct quotations, the class learned about indirect quotations. It took a little practice, but the students were able to listen to a sentence with a direct quotation and come up with their own indirect quotation.

Math- We added a new definition to our geometry terms.... trapezoid! Although a parallelogram has two sets of parallel lines, a trapezoid only has one set. To review what they have learned, and to add “trapezoid” to our rapidly expanding vocabulary, the kids made the shapes for themselves. Hands on learning = mastery! Afterward, to keep it fresh, we had a review of subtraction that requires regrouping more than once. The concept hasn't been forgotten!

Science- Wow. These kids are really interested in electricity! Although we had planned to move on to a new topic today, the class is far to interested in electricity to just move on.... so, we PLAYED! On Homework Hideout, the kids have had a great time on so many sites about electrical circuits. Today, they took turns standing up and teaching their classmates something that they learned at home! Much to my surprise, each one of them ate up the opportunity, grabbed the dry erase marker, and ran the show!

After the excellent recap on the at home material, we broke up and headed to different tables for a “centers” activity. At one center was the circuit set that we began last week. The students could attach wires to the coils to connect different circuits, testing the LED lights and the photo transmitter. The next center had a kit where the kids could make their own solar powered vehicle. This was a very difficult activity! I may be sending the kits home on Tuesday, so the ones who began working on it can finish (or at least play around with) the activities. The last center had a set called “Snap Circuits”. You can find Snap Circuits online, and I highly recommend getting them for your inquisitive, science-loving child!

Social Studies- Mr. Dennis led the children through a map activity today! They had to cut out labels and descriptions for countries, continents, and oceans, and paste them on their world maps. To complete this activity, they hit the big wall map and the interactive globe... leading them to share lots of extracurricular knowledge like the population of Uganda or the tune to the national anthem of Belgium!

Writing- On homework hideout yesterday, the kids were given a visual writing prompt. Instead of a story starter of words, they were given a picture of a rainbow, pot of gold, and a Leprechaun! As a quick writing assignment, they worked on their own creative story about the picture. Although I had only planned to look over their rough drafts and help revise, they insisted that they share what they had written so far! So, they read their stories to each other. At home, they will complete the stories, polish them up, and bring them back in to share their final drafts on Tuesday!

Oh... and Winnie, the guinea, spent the day in class with us today.  As the only egg out of five that hatched, the little girl needs as much attention as she can get!