Lost camera cord= long delay in posts

I knew one day all these absences were going to catch up with me. Upon picking up and moving the computer USB to a "safe place" while I was gone, I seem to have misplaced it. I have searched high and low and hope to come upon it soon as it had great science pictures on it. Hopefully, it will be located soon or someone will have one that will fit my camera. I have tried about every other cord I own and no luck. :( Back to my phone to take pictures I guess! :) Anyway, enjoy what is here, hopefully I can catch up for lost time later.

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Upcoming this week: 

5/14 I will be out of the classroom but in the building all day 

The weather is supposed to get HOT! Please send water bottles to school with your child. 

Popsicles have already been purchased for Tuesday. 

Math- In the last month, we finished up our geometry unit, reviewed counting, ordering, and comparing money. We made change from $5 using the fewest number of coins. Last week we reviewed telling time. We discussed breaking a clock up into halves and quarters. We also learned about elapsed time. This week we will continue elapsed time and move on to graphing.   

 
Reading-    Two weeks ago we read Operation Rescue by Christina Wilsdon. This is a nonfiction selection about the Exxon Valdez oil spill off the coast of Alaska in 1989. Students will learn that oil spills can kill the sea animals who get caught in them. The author’s careful explanations and excellent photographs show different methods used to clean and care for otters and sea birds pulled from the area of a spill.  
         Last week we read The Rooster who Understood Japanese by Yoshiko Uchida. In this story Mrs. Kitamura and her odd assortment of pets live next door to Miyo and her mother. One day a new neighbor demands that Mrs. Kitamura stop her pet rooster from crowing in the mornings. Sympathetic to Mrs. Kitamura’s predicament, Miyo comes up with a clever idea that solves the problem. 

         This week will we read Turtle Knows your Name by Ashley Bryan. This is a folk tale from the West Indies, a young boy (Upsilimana Tumpalerado) is frustrated because no one can remember his long name. Later when challenges to guess his grandmother’s long name (Mapaseedo Jackalindy Eye Pie Tackarindy), the boy turns to turtle who gives him some help.

Science- In the past few weeks we have been taking a look at the difference between rocks and minerals. 

 (Missing pictures of the class in goggles taking their mock rocks apart!)

 After taking apart our mock rocks (fake rocks) the class did several experiments to have evidence of what the rocks were made out of. This included adding water to vials, shaking, having them rest, then using evaporation trays to see if there was anything in the water.

After finishing up with the mock rocks, we talked about how a rock is like a cookie and made of all different ingredients (minerals) where heat is added and changes the final product. 

Below shows our mock rock cookies! :)

We read a story about the different stones for each month, what they were and why they were given. Students were fascinated by myths and stories surrounding each stone. Here is a graph of our birthdays and birthstones.

We took a look at four different minerals: Calcite, Quartz, Gypsum, and Fluorite. We observed their properties then tested to see which of these minerals were the hardest by completing different trials of scratch tests.

Writing- After finishing up poetry, we have finished up some odds and ins and are learning how fun writing can be.
  

HAPPY BELATED MOTHER'S DAY! 

Hope you enjoyed your presents. I thought they came out really cute! Students made salt dough which we formed into hearts, added our thumb prints, baked, and painted. We added a long lace so it could be your choice to use it as a necklace or maybe even a keychain. Thank you for raising such wonderful children (students)!

 

Upcoming May/June Events

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May 20^th         Chorus 6:30-3^rd and 7:30-4th

May 21^st         Band Assembly for 4^th grade at 1:00 PM

May 21^st         2^nd grade from Starry visit to FMI 9:30-10:30

May 22^nd        3^rd grade music pizza party

May 22^nd        2^nd grade from Emerson visit to FMI  9:30-10:30

May 22^nd        4^th grade field trip  Wick, Don, Col

May 23^rd         4^th grade visit to VMS  Time TBA

May 24^th         4^th grade field trip  Fa, Ca, Wilk

May 26^th         MHS Grad at 6PM

May 28^th         FMI Night Out  (2^nd grade visit)

Mary 29^th        3^rd grade track & field day

May 30           4^th grade track & field day

May 31^st         4^th grade chorus pizza party?

June 4^th            Last day of school (1:30 Dismissal)

Have a great week!

Mrs. Jodie Yuska 

One big blur....

Ok, I apologize. I am out of routine and need to get back on the ball. The last week and a half have been one big blur. I swear I blink and it is a new week. With that being said. Here is an update for last week and this week so far.

Lunch and recess will be different today and on Friday as 4th grade has lunch buddies from Rockwell in the building. On Wednesday and Friday, 3rd grade will have recess first 11:15-11:45 and lunch 2nd 11:45-12:15.

Math- Last week we continued our geometry unit and talked a lot about the creation of boxes, how many cubes would it take to make an open box, how about a closed box. This required a lot of spacial awareness and helped us to learn about finding the volume of something also! :)  The last few days we have worked on defining and creating examples and non-examples of lines, line segments, angles (right, acute, and obtuse), and rays. We have also worked on what a polygon is; a closed figure, created from straight lines, and at least four angles. 

Reading-   Last week we read  Dream Wolf by Paul Goble. This story is about a Native American legend, which tells the story of two young children who wander away from their mother. When night falls, the children, cold and lost, take refuge in a cave. A friendly wolf keeps them warm and the next morning leads them home.

 

Text Talk- This week we will use  Koko's Kitten. This is a nonfiction piece about a gorilla who uses sign language named Koko and his deep love for his kitten named All Ball.  Our text talk words are: accustomed, affection, aggressive, distress, capable, and console. This will be our last text talk book for the year.   

Science- Last week we switched from talking about paleontology and fossils to geology and the study of the earth. This was a great introduction to our Earth Materials unit. However, this year seemed to take a lot longer for our "mock" rocks to dry out than in the past. I am blaming all the wet weather! :) I finally brought them to school and placed them on the heater in the teacher's workroom.

To fill the time, the class had a chance to make salt dough and use a variety of toys (dinosaurs, animals, trees, etc.) to create an imprint fossil. After some time to dry, we greased the imprint and filled it with Plaster of Paris to create the fossil from the mold. The kids were very excited to crack these open today. They should be arriving home in a ziploc bag. 

We also discussed how different rocks are formed as well as the difference between a sedimentary rock, a metamorphic rock, and an igneous rock. We furthered our exploration with making some crayon rock examples. Monday for Earth Day we discussed the importance of Reducing, Reusing, and Recycling our trash. We also enjoyed some dirt cake. YUM!

Our crayon shavings for rock layers

Igneous rock- sold to a liquid to a solid

metamorphic rock- different layers with pressure and heat fuses together but you can still see the different layers.

sedimentary rock- (not a good picture) rock layers with just pressure, no heat, most fragile of rock types

Finally, today the kids got to get their hands on their mock rocks. Today we talked about the properties of a rock. The students made observations of their mock rocks (fake rocks), by its looks and smell. They created a sketch, a magnified sketch, as well as measured the diameter (across), the circumference (around), and the depth (thickness) in centimeters. Last but not least they used a scale and measured their mock rocks weight in grams. Sorry, I didn't take more pictures. There was some measuring confusion I needed to address! :) 

Tomorrow, the students will get to play geologist and break their mock rocks apart using a nail and more importantly safety goggles. They will have to use their observations from today and what they can see tomorrow to determine what a mock rock is made out of. I have a feeling after a few more experiments, they will want or need to add more ingredients to our list.

 

Writing- Last week we started our poetry unit as April is "National Poetry Month." We started off with some poems where you filled in the blanks and are now creating our own poetry while learning about new types of poetry and new vocabulary poetry can involve. The students are already amazed with the different kind of poetry. Just wait till they continue to watch our list grow throughout the rest of the month.  Students have their own poetry folder they have designed. Each day we collect our poems and add them to their folders. They will be arriving home at the end of the month.

Upcoming dates:  
 4/24 & 4/25 Book Club after school till 4

4/25 4th grade informance 

4/25 Girls on the Run

4/30 1:30 dismissal 

5/3 I am gone at Grant Wood AEA for a PBIS coaches meeting all day- Mrs. Randall is scheduled to be here.

5/6 & 5/7 I am gone to an RTI (Response to Intervention) conference in North Liberty both days- Mrs. Randall is scheduled to be here.  These are hopefully the last days I am gone for the rest of the year! 

5/ 29 3rd grade track and field day (more details to come, I don't know much! :) )

 


Have a great week!  
Mrs. Jodie Yuska

All things April

Wow! It is hard to believe the last trimester is already half way over. I am hoping to send midterm reports home next week. The week of April 15th! :)

There has a been and will be a lot happening in our room, this sometimes means guest teachers as well changes in schedules.  So far the kids have been really good about this. 

Math- Last week we completed a review of math we learned prior to spring break. This included a review of fractions, division, and multiplication facts. We will continue to practice these skills while moving on. This week we started to discuss geometry. So far we have discussed the properties of 2d and 3d shapes. The last few days we have worked on designing open and closed boxes for cubes and determining the number and shapes of cube faces and other rectangular prisms. This helped us learn how they come together to make a whole. Today we will be working on the same concepts with triangular pyramids. 

Reading-   Last week we  read Storm in the Night by Mary Stolz. This story is about a grandson named Thomas who listens to his grandfather tell a tale about a storm that occurred when he was a boy. As he listens, Thomas begins to overcome his fear of the thunderous night while realizing that fear is a natural response.  This week we took our unit test and used reading time to work on our Text Talk vocabulary. 

Text Talk- This week we read  Angel Child, Dragon Child. Book Summary from Scholastic: Ut, a Vietnamese girl attending school in the United States, is lonely for her mother left behind in Vietnam. She has difficulty adjusting to her new life, and her classmates do not accept her because she is different. Then she makes a new friend who presents her with a wonderful gift. A heartfelt, gentle, and realistic story. Our text talk words are: tilted, tender, yearn, gleam, mumbling, and cooperative.  

Science- Last week the students chose a country and did a small research project. They created brochures with travel information, which they presented to the class. 

 

 

This week we have been learning a lot about fossils. I love when I learn new information too! :) With our trip to the fossil gorge tomorrow, we have been learning a lot about paleontology (the study of things living long ago) and what a paleontologist (a person who digs and researches things found in sedimentary rock levels) may do and use. 

 

  
 

Writing- Last week we wrote "Cloudy with a chance of..." stories either by ourselves or in a small group. We took the time to edit our writing and word process them on the mobile lab cart. We took time to write a quick story about if you dug up a dinosaur bone using a t-chart to pre-write. We will print our cloudy stories, illustrate them, and share them with the class.  

Upcoming this month:  
4/12 Field Trip to Coralville
4/15 Pictures and/ or picture DUE
4/19 I will be gone to attend my daughter's Kindergarten Roundup- Mr. Shaffer is scheduled to be in our room.
4/19 LAST day to turn in Book Club signup sheets
Other than that, I believe there is just a continuation of Good News Club and Girls on the Run.  


Have a great week!  
Mrs. Jodie Yuska

Iowa Assessment Week

Just a reminder, we are taking Iowa Assessments all week, please talk to your child about trying their best. Ways to help your child get ready for the assessments are 1) to get a good night sleep, 2) eat a nutritious breakfast, 3) dress comfortable (our room does tend to get very warm). 

Yesterday, they did AWESOME! I could tell they were trying very hard. Some were getting frustrated and some thought the test was fun. We shall see what the rest of the week holds for us! :)

Since I am running late, I am combining our work for last week and this week. I will post again if something else comes up during the week! :) 

Math- Last week we discussed division. We we have practiced dividing by 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9. We will continue to practice these facts as well as practice multiplication facts this week. Monday we discussed dividing with a remainder. Today we are going to practice how to solve some larger multiplication facts then go into creating fact families for multiplication and division.

Reading-   Last week we read  Tornado Alert by Franklyn M. Branley. This is a nonfiction piece about the dangers and destruction that comes with tornado season. The students are always amazed to learn that Iowa is part of the “Tornado Alley,” and how they can be catastrophic. Students will discuss the main ideas and supporting details of the story.We will not have a basal story and story quiz this week. 

Text Talk- This week we will use text talk in place of our basal story. Our text talk book is Dear Mrs. LaRue by Mark Teague. This story is written from the dog's perspective of an event versus how the newspaper reported it happened. Words we will work on are: despair, obedience, melodramatic, misconception, neglected, and persistent. We will hopefully also find time to read  The Cow Who Wouldn't Come Down again. Our text talk words will be different from our reading vocabulary words. So the kids will get a double dose of vocabulary from this text. Our text talk words are: contrary, glide, ignored, sternly, innovative, and rivals.
 
  Science- The students are finishing up talking about sound. Last week and this week we finished our experiments talking about sound moving though air (gas), string (solid), and water.  A study guide will be filled out on Wednesday and sent home. Our unit test will be on Monday, March 18th. I have placed a copy of it below if it does not make it home.

Sound through air (using tuning forks, megaphones, our voices, and cylinder tubes)

 

Sound through string (using cup telephones, and our voices)

We even attempted to create 4-way calling. :)

 

Sound through water (using buckets, stethoscopes, tuning forks, our fingers, and our voices)

 

Our Physics of Sound study guide

 

Writing- We will continue our work in our ABC books. Our reports have been written after creating a t-chart and transferring it to number notes. Students thought making the t-chart to number notes was far more complicated than taking the number notes to a 4 paragraph report! :) We will continue to work with transition words as I did not require them in our non-fiction report. During our technology time for the next couple weeks students will be typing reports and creating a 2 slide PowerPoint presentation, which will be shared at conferences. 

Upcoming this month: 
 3/12 Book Club, Choir concert 6:30, Iowa Assessments
3/13 Iowa Assessments, Book Club Meets
3/14 Iowa Assessments, Book Club, Girls on the Run  
3/15 Iowa Assessments

3/18 Science test

3/19 Spring pictures, Conferences

3/21 Early dismissal, Conferences 3/22-3/31 No School- Spring Break  
4/1- Classes back in session :)  Snow make-up day
 

Have a great week! 
Mrs. Jodie Yuska