We hope you are staying warm and enjoying the snow! We are so proud of the growth of our green frogs, grasshoppers and giants. Their ongoing creativity, growth and innovated thinking fills us, and them, with great pride. Everyday we learn something new from our students. It is an absolute joy to teach them.
This quarter we have explored Ancient Egypt, traveled to different habitats around the world, used graphing to display data collection, and measured with fractions. In social studies we are moving into the contributions of Ancient China.
The students are also finding the fun in counting money through "brain" games, song, movement, literature, computer software, and good, old-fashioned coins. Outside of school you can take the time to ask your child questions about money in real-life contexts - identify the number of pennies equivalent to a nickel, a dime, and a quarter, determine the value of a collection of pennies, nickels, and dimes whose total value is 100 cents or less, count and compare a collection of pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters whose total value is $2.00 or less, and correctly use the cent symbol (¢), dollar symbol ($), and decimal point (.). (VA Standards of Learning)
We are very excited to hear about this quarter's family habitat science projects - they sound amazing! The creativity is astounding. We can't wait to see what habitats you've constructed and the creative ways you've interpreted them. The sky's the limit!
During guided reading, we continue to teach and practice reading/comprehension strategies and fluency in small instructional groups. We stress the importance of questioning before, during and after reading. Our students are learning to sequence important events when retelling a story, analyzing the parts of a story, finding the main idea, and making inferences when the answer is not "right there." Making connections is an important reading strategy. These connections help students better understand the text by relating it to their own experiences, other texts, and making world connections. We aim to foster a life-long love of reading.
Please enjoy some of the photos we snapped during our hands-on, engaging, project-based student learning...
To investigate how the Ancient Egyptians mummified their Pharaohs, we mummified Hot Pockets! We used metaphors to connect the bread to the body, the stuffing to the organs that the Egyptians would remove, we packed the pockets back with rice to represent the straw, and the wrapped the bodies in bandages and created a sarcophagus! We decorated the outside with Hieroglyphs!
More mummies...
Egyptian cowls and sugar-cube pyramids....
Pizza fractions, field of fractions and a pictograph of birthdays...
Recycled habitats and science investigations...
Stay warm!
The Green Team
Ms. Morgan, Mrs. Browning & Mrs. Emmel :)
