March 24 - 28th

On Monday we were visited by Laura Holladay of the Ecology Center.  She taught us about the value in choosing foods that have a natural cycle.  She connected this with our science unit on life cycles, comparing it to the life cycle of other animals and fruits such as chickens or apples. (See below)

With a food like potato chips, there are many steps involved in processing the snack and ultimately, the leftover (wrapper) just gets thrown in the garbage:

With a food like an orange, the food is eaten in it's natural state (whole food), and ultimately, what is left (the peel) can be composted, turned into soil and used to grow more fruit!  Therefore, there is a natural cycle with whole foods that is typically not found in processed foods.  In addition, whole foods are healthier for us!

The children also looked at examples of foods that they needed to brainstorm to create innovate packing for that would create less waste.

Here are two sites with more information about the idea of edible food packaging, which Laura briefly mentioned during her presentation:

http://www.foodproductiondaily.com/Packaging/Edible-food-packaging-dissolves-in-water-developer

http://designtoimprovelife.dk/wikicell/

 The children enjoyed visiting the book fair this week! Thank you to all the parents who gave their time volunteering at the fair!!

In Math this week we practiced measuring, both long jumps and arm spans:

We then graphed the class data of our arm spans:

We also explored probability with a new math game called "Soccer Spin":

We we received our next pen pal letters this week and began busily writing back!

In Social Studies we have continued our study of different professions.  We have been reading books that teach us about different jobs as well.

March 17 - 21st

On Monday we were fortunate to have the U of M Society of Women Engineers come visit us.  They taught the children how to make compasses with cork, water, a magnet and a paperclip.  This connected with our upcoming mini unit on Magnetism, as well as our social studies exploration of maps and map tools.

This week in social studies we began reading about various occupations including service jobs. The children learned a little about athletes, entertainers, architects, health care providers, and more.  A reminder that if any parents would like to come in to talk with the class about your work, we would be happy to have you!

On Wednesday we visited Hill Auditorium to hear the Ann Arbor Symphony Orchestra perform the "Planets" concert!

Below is the beginning of the funny math story of the Wubbles.  The children needed to figure out how many Wubbles they would have by the end of the week.  Some students challenged themselves by figuring out how many Wubbles there would be after 2 weeks!

 This week the children learned a game called "Basketball addition".  This was great practice on adding multiple numerals.

Children worked with writing buddies this week to share stories and give one another feedback:

Rainy day inside recess building:

Sunshine!

March 11 - 14th

A few things to share from our three day week!

Class read aloud:

In Math we have been looking closely at the patterns in the ones place while skip counting.

For Mahir's birthday celebration he showed us some fancy long division and also told us a few knock-knock jokes!

We had a wonderful time on our walking field trip to the Museum of Natural History.  Huge thanks to Ernie Sorini and Suman Dutta for joining us on this trip as chaperones!  We saw a show in the planetarium that taught us about earthquakes and looked at salt, sand and sugar in stereoscopes.  We learned about rock formation, weathering, erosion, how rivers are formed and much more.

The children completed a Pangea puzzle to view how the continents were once all connected:

Demo on how mountains are formed: