What a fun week! We worked so hard in all subject areas, but I think that most of us really enjoyed our Science unit this week: classifying matter.
We reviewd the 3 different forms of matter and what the word PROPERTY means when we are describing matter.
Then, we were ready for our Science lab. Before we begin a lab, we have to have jobs to help make our lab run smoothly.
We looked at a frozen popsicle, a melted popsicle, a gummy worm, a frozen gummy worm, a deflated balloon, and an inflated balloon. We observed and investigated and then recorded in our Science Notebooks the different properties of each form of matter. Then, we compared them to see how they were alike and how they were different.
The next day, we went on a "Matter Hunt" in our classroom. We explored ALL over the classroom and recorded as many solids, liquids, and gases that we could find. We had some really creative discoveries! The person who found the most of each type of matter won a prize! We were so determined to find the most that this game was probably the quietest we have ever been as scientists! :-)
It is important that scientists are using the correct vocabulary so we learned about different scientific words and their definitions.
Look how our Science bulletin board is changing and filling up with all of the things we are learning!
This week at our writer's meetings, we looked at a piece of writing that Mrs. Maggart had done. But something just didn't look right about it.
Her punctuation was missing! It had taken a vacation! We read a book about punctuation and how important it is to have it in our writing so readers can read our work.
We helped Mrs. Maggart put her punctuation back into her writing. Then, we played "Punctuation Police" and checked a buddy's Word Study Notebook to make sure that when they had written their sentences, they had started them with a capital letter and ended the sentence with...punctuation!
We also learned about how important details are in a story and what a difference it makes when we add details to a good story. We looked at author Mo Willem's Writer's Notebook and his story about a pig, an elephant, and a toy.
Then, we saw how he added details and we read his book with lots of pages.
Wow! We all agreed that the book with pages and details was much better for us as readers. We experimented writing with pages and turned a story about a day at the library into a story with 4 pages! We were able to add lots of details.
In Math, we talked about making groups of 10 and all of the ways we could make ten. Mrs. Maggart showed us how to play a new game about making ten in different ways.
When we are being mathematicians during Math Workshop, we sometimes choose to play a math game. Sometimes, the other people at our table are working with Mrs. Maggart at her table or have chosen another acitvity to do so we don't have someone to play a game with. But that doesn't stop our Tiger Team leaders! We are proactive and find a way to play that game and practice our math skills...even if we have to play with a furry friend!
We ended our week by learning about another historical leader: Eleanor Roosevelt. Ask me about why I think she was a leader and how I am a leader just like her!
Love,
