November 18 - 22nd

This year as part of our Life Cycles unit, we will be studying human life and our own growth as individuals, from fall to spring. The children have been measuring each other's head circumference, height, foot length and hand length.  They have made predictions about how much they think they will grow over the course of the school year.

While studying rocks, we have been focusing on the three main kinds of rocks: Metamorphic, Sedimentary & Igneous.  This week the students highlighted the main clues to determine rock type when examining a new rock:

Each student received a rock specimen, sketched the rock and recorded facts about the rock:

In Social Studies this week we continued our map exploration by looking at a map of central Ann Arbor.  We navigated our way by answering questions such as "What is south of the stadium?"  and "Which park is north of Bach School?"

Arush shared his compass with the class, too!

This week in Math we learned the game "Making Change".  

This can easily be played at home!

Field trip to Ann Arbor District Library!

Thank you to Takuto's mom Satoko for joining us on this trip!

Pajama Day!

November 11 - 15th

We had a wonderful time at the Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain performance. Mrs. Ryan shared the following links with the staff, if you would like to take a peek at their wide range in style!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLgJ7pk0X-s

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LUijx65ss9I

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yW8mF2be0I0

Maps!

This week we continued our work with maps.  We learned how to find coordinates on a grid, first by starting with a life size grid:

 When we started talking about map grids, 

Sam exclaimed "You need to know coordinates for Battleship!!"  

A few other children knew just the boardgame game he was referring to:

 After practicing on the life size grid, we worked with maps of Michigan, to locate cities within our own state.  The students worked in partnerships to find the cities on the map index, which lists the coordinates.  They located the following cities using the map grid:

Lansing, Detroit, Ann Arbor, Ypsilanti, Chelsea, Mackinac Island, Grand Rapids, Kalamazoo

Some students noticed that the larger/major cities were written in capitals and/or bold face, while smaller cities like Chelsea were written in smaller text.

*The students each brought home a Michigan map and these are to keep at home.  Ask your child to demonstrate how to look up cities and find them on the map!

Classroom Maps with map keys

Many students used mathematical skills and tools such as pattern block templates and straight edges, when creating their maps:

Money!

This week in math we worked on making change, and counting up as a strategy for finding how much change is due.  For example:  If I buy something that costs 60 cents, and I pay $1.00, the cashier may count my change back to me in dimes, starting from 60 cents and jumping up to $1.00 : "70 cents, 80 cents, 90 cents, one dollar" which would be 4 dimes in change, or 40 cents.  We have also been working on dollars and cents notation.  Ex. 100 cents = $1.00

On Friday the students played "Dollar Rummy", where they needed to make pairs of amounts of change that added up to $1.00 (compliments of 100).

Please find the Family Letter for Unit 4 in your child's homework folder, which we will be beginning next week!

More Rocks from home!

November 4 - 8th

Our Trip to Michigan Radio!

Old Fashioned Sound Boards:

News Director, Vincent Duffy, shows us the News Room, Assignment Board, what a news reporter needs to carry in their bag, and tells us how it all comes together!

The World Clock:

Mid-day Host Mike Perini let us visit during his few minute off air break!

Studio West, where the students were recorded:

A few students helped follow the bus route, great map practice:

Sharing about family vacation:

Class Read-Aloud:

Sharing rocks from home:

This week we started our work on maps! We are learning how to make map keys, and why they are useful.  The students studied the example of a classroom map below, and began to create their own maps and map keys of our own classroom.  We will be working on these projects next week: