Iowa Assessment Week

Your children are AMAZING! Not only did they test like rock stars last week. They were terrific with all of our schedule changes and various things that made for a very crazy schedule last week. I am so proud of each and everyone of them!

Math- In math we have been reviewing how to tell time. We are working on using phrases like quarter till, quarter past, half past, etc. We have also worked on telling time to the nearest minute on an analog clock. This week we continued to practice these skill as well as covered the concept of elapsed time. Elapsed time is difficult for many students. We start with skills like "tell me what time it will be in 20 minutes" or "The clock starts at 10:15 am and ends at 10:45 am, How much time has past?" However, we have been working our way up to how much time has passed with various hours and minutes as well as changing over from am to pm or pm back to am. This is a multi-step process and can throw many kids off. This is a skill we will continue to practice and they will continue to practice in the future.

Reading- Due to testing, we did not have a Basal story this week. In Guided Reading/ Daily 5 we took a chance between books to review various comprehension strategies.

Writing- We are continuing our poetry unit by discussing metaphors, poetry in music, and acrostic poems this week. At the beginning of the week we used metaphors to describe our feelings and moods in colors. We also used colors to make rainbows of items of each color. In the middle of the week we took a look at some songs popular in music today and discussed the metaphors and poetry in each song. At the end of the week, students had a chance to create an acrostic poem about themselves using their names. 

 Science- Monday ended our Kitchen Chemistry adventure. Thank you again to Mason's grandparents for the wonderful donation to our classroom which provided the chance to purchase many of the supplies we used! :) The class absolutely loved this two week unit. It was exactly what we all needed to get a jump start back to school after spring break! At the end you will find some of the pictures and videos, which I had troubles uploading last week. Thank you for your patience.

On Monday- We observed the results from our Peeps lab experiments. We concluded the apple juice and pop created less of an effect on our Peep because it already contained a high amount of sugar. The water, our base took the sugar off and disolved some of our marshmallow. However, the vingear, an acid made our Peep almost nonexisitant. 

 On Tuesday, we transffered our brains over from being a chemist to being a geologist. 

On Wednesday, no science. :)

On Thursday, students were introduced to their mock rocks (fake rocks) and started to identify some of their properties.

On Friday, We finished looking at the properties of our mock rocks and started to break them apart to get a better "look" at what they are made out of. We will continue this process on Monday. 

Pictures and videos which had troubles uploading last week: 
Gummy Bear Lab: 

videos: 

Liquid Acidity Tests

Upcoming dates:

Friday, April 4th- Happy Belated Birthday Anna! 

Wednesday, April 15th- TAX DAY! This is a BIG deal in my house! :) 
Thursday, April 16th- I will be gone on a personal day. Hopefully Brandon and I can finalize everything for our upcoming addition to our family. 

Monday, April 21st-Thursday, April 24th- Last book club of the year
Wednesday, April 23rd- I will be gone in the morning for a doctor's appointment. 

Saturday, May 3rd- Happy Birthday Hailee! 
Sunday, May 4th- Happy Birthday Katie! 
Tuesday, May 6th- 4th grade Informance

Wednesday, May 7th- My due date 

Tuesday, May 13th- Bike Assembly and Rodeo
Wednesday, May 14th- 1:15 Dismissal

Monday, May 26th- No School- Memorial Day
Tuesday, May 27th or Wednesday, May 28th- Walk to Marion Library

Monday, June 2nd- Normal day of school (3rd grade track day)
Tuesday, June 3rd- Normal day of school (4th grade track day)
Wednesday, June 4th- Mrs. Yuska may be back for the day! :) 

Summer birthdays: 
Monday, June 30th- Happy Birthday Seth! 
Wednesday, July 9th- Happy Birthday Nick! 
Monday, July 14th- Happy Birthday Riley! 
Friday, July 18th- Happy Birthday Mason! 
Sunday, August 10th- Happy Birthday Addy! 

I hope you had a chance to enjoy the beautiful weather on Saturday. Looks like it will be a little while before we see weather like that again! Have a great rest of the week!

 Mrs. Jodie Yuska