Welcome December (almost!)!

News of the week:Thank you to everyone who attending their child's conference! :) It was great to have everyone show up and share in the success their child is having this year. I know it is not always at the most convenient times for you or there is a wait to be seen. However, ALL teacher's greatly appreciate your dedication to your child's education! I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving break! A few short weeks and it will be time for another one!

Math- This week we multiplied by 6, 7, 8 and 9. We talked a lot about tricks for the 9's. On Thursday, a packet when home with a few tricks or ways to help your child start memorizing their multiplication facts. Although, we will make flashcards at school to practice, they may make a great stocking stuffer and can usually be found for around a dollar! :) We will continue practicing our basic facts. I hope to start introducing division by the end of the month.

 

Reading- This week we read Ramona Forever by Beverly Cleary. Ramona is showing a range of emotions as she gets ready for a new baby in her family. She is anxious about her mother's condition, then disappointed and humiliated when she is too young to see the infant in the hospital. In the end, an excited Ramona takes center stage, as she shares how intrigued she is by her new sister Roberta. During this story we analyzed Ramona and her wide range of feelings and behavior. We also made inferences about how Ramona was feeling different times in the story when the author did not come straight out and tell us.

Text Talk- This week we read A Bad Case of Stripes by David Shannon. This is a story about a girl named Camila Cream who is too busy worrying about what everyone else thinks, to be her true self. She comes down with a case of stripes, which then changes into other things as she is easily influenced by others. Only when she is true to herself and honest about her love for lima beans does she go back to normal. The words we studied were: altered, contagious, distraction, remedies, perplexed, and vanished. On Thursday, students created a cause and effect from the story about Camilla Cream. If you are interested in hearing this story, it can be found at: http://www.storylineonline.net/stripes/fullscreen_yt.html

Science- Today students learned more about Ben Franklin and Thomas Edison various inventors and inventions. We also discussed carbon printing this week. Carbon Printing is when you transfer carbon (or graphite which is used in place of lead in current day #2 pencils) on a piece of scratch paper by scribbling. Then students rubbed their fingertips along the surface. The fingertip is now like a printing plate and can transfer the residue. We placed tape over their fingers to collect as much carbon as we could while leaving the finger print impression. After taking our fingerprints we looked at the finger patterns. Everyone's fingerprints are unique, but they usually have one of the three basic patterns known as arches, whorls, and loops. On Tuesday, we were detectives, we played a game called Mystery Prints. Students were placed in groups and took their index print and middle finger print. Then they selected one member of the group to be a "mystery person." This person added only one print to the Mystery Print card. As cards traveled to different groups, they had to solve who's print it was by looking at the patterns.

Whorls- go around and around like a spiral

Loops- start at one side, go up to the middle and back out the same side

Arch- goes up, through the middle, and out the other side. It looks like a hill.

On Wednesday and for the next four weeks, we will have a volunteer named Dru Bridges, come into our classroom and teach Junior Achievement.  Junior Achievement is about a community. So they have volunteers from the community teach lessons about what makes a community, and what types of communities do we live in. Our class will talk a lot about zones (business, residential, industrial, farming, and multipurpose zones). We will talk about how a city planner uses these zones to develop a city and determine what buildings will go where. This week, students were introduced to Dru, the zones, and then made our classrooms in different zones. These lessons are always a lot of fun. I will try to remember to write what we did that week in JA each week in the Science section! :)

Mrs. Jodie Yuska