Non-fiction Writing

The students have been working on researching animals of their choice in Writer's Workshop, as well as historical figures who have made a difference in their communities to connect to our Social Studies unit on difference-makers.  Students have learned to take notes and pull out the most important facts from a text, without copying word for word.  The students have also begun to present their research findings to the class.

Pollination

In Science with Mrs. Brennan the students have been learning about why plants have flowers.  

On Friday they did an activity to think about pollination.  Students took a Q-Tip and used it to "buzz around" some cotton balls covered in glitter.  At the end, they noticed that both the Q-Tips and the cotton balls were covered in many different colors of glitter. 

Next they thought about our connection to science.  They decided that this represented pollination.

The students learned that pollination is necessary for a flower to make a seed, and that is our big connection to life cycles.  The students watched a video on an education site called Brainpop to summarize why plants need pollination and related that to our glitter activity.  They also did a science journal entry.  

This week the students will continue to think about the role flowers play in the life cycle of plants!

Natural History Museum

We had a great time on our field trip to the Natural History Museum yesterday. We learned about erosion, the layers of the Earth's crust, rock formation, and more.  Many thanks to Liya's dad and Daniel's mom for joining us as chaperones on this trip!

Shape Attributes

In Math we have been exploring geometry. In a recent lesson we explored attributes of shapes and looked for attributes that different shapes had in common including number of vertices, right angles and parallel lines.

How-To Books

The students have just wrapped up a unit on How-To writing with Ms. Loose.  The students' work will be compiled as "magazine articles" in a classroom magazine.  The students worked very hard on this project, including working with a checklist, rough draft, and conferencing with Ms. Loose to edit their work.

Visit from Dr. Malani

Big thanks to Nina's dad, who came in last week to teach the children about his work as an infectious diseases physician.  He brought in glo-germ to show the students the importance of hand washing  www.glogerm.com   He also provided the students with some travel sized hand sanitizer.