Our Class Blog: October 7

This week the children continued our exploration on fish by doing some research with partners, and then sharing their findings with the class:

Students played the game of Memory with a partner using their spelling words. Rather than making an exact match as in the traditional version, the children looked for matches by pattern.

Ex: for the Whales:

goat and road are a match, because they both have an "oa" that makes a long o sound

Ex. for the Dolphins:

taking and chewing are not a match, because the "e" in "take" is dropped before adding -ing, but "chew" needs no change before adding "ing"

Ex. for the Porpoises:

"hug" and "tug" are matches because they both have the short u sound

Fact Triangle partner practice: (Please see the family note about Fact triangles in your child's homework folder.)

One child covers any number and his/her partner would say, "4 + 7 = 11"

Here, the child would say "6 - 3 = 3"

This week we visited the beautiful Outdoor Learning Center for the first time for writing time. The children loved the calm and peaceful environment. We plan to return often for various types of independent and group activities.

This week in Social Studies we continued our discussion of goods and services by exploring where our own clothes are made. The students made observations about which parts of the world seem produce more clothing. On this particular day, no one was wearing clothing from the USA. Several children had clothing made in China and Bangladesh. Children learned about countries that some had never heard of before, such as Nicaragua, Haiti and Indonesia. Some students noticed that one clothing brand produced clothing in two different countries, very far apart from one another.

Students can sometimes even be found doing work at recess, by their own choice!

The second graders from the Hep/Dep classes went on their field trip to the Gravel Pit this week, and Mr. Szczygiel (our district's amazing environmental education leader) lent them a very interesting sphere making machine. We visited Ms. Hepner's classroom on Friday to take a look at the machine, and learn about the process. Raw rock is first cut into a 26 faceted roughly sphere like shape, then placed into the machine with grit and water dripping over it while it is rotated to create a perfect polished sphere. Click the last image to view a short video of the machine in action.