EGGI Week!

Dear Family,

This week was Education Go Get It Week. We learned about some different colleges that we could go to one day and we learned about all of the reasons why getting a good education is so important. We even got to listen to two speakers tell us about two exciting careers that we could have one day. We learned that so many skills that we're practicing each and every day at school already are skills we will need one day when we pursue a career.

Mr. Santiago is a firefighter and he came to share with us all the details of his career. He talked to us about how important leadership is when you are a firefighter and all the ways he is a leader each and every day. He also shared with us some of his equipment that he is responsible for each day. He even talked about matter and how he uses his senses daily...just what we're learning about in Science!

We were such respectful listeners.

Mr. Santiago provided us with lots of pictures in his slideshow.

We were so interested in what he had to say!

He showed us all of the equipment he uses and is responsible for.

We also listened to Officer Pedron, a police officer, who came to share with us all of the details of a career as an officer. We learned so many interesting facts and even got to hold and observe a real life badge!

Getting to look at and hold a real badge!

Because both Officer Pedron and Mr. Santiago explained how important our studies are, we worked really hard in the classroom this week. In Writing, we learned a very fancy word - genres. We learned that there are many genres, or different kinds of writing that we can do when we are being writers.

We learned when is a good time to write a list and how helpful lists can be. We can make lists about things we do everyday or lists about topics that we care about.

We learned what is a good time to write a letter and what makes a letter such a special piece of writing.

We also started talking about the writing process. We learned that there are very special words that writer's use when we are working through the writing process. We know that we first think of a topic, then we write a draft which is when we do the best we can. We write drafts in our Writer's Notebooks and that is why our spelling is done the best we can using our dictionaries, sound cards, and stretching techniques to spell words that are "tricky." We know that drafts are not our final piece and we know that if we choose to publish a piece, it will need a lot of work. One part of the work we must do is to revise. Revise means to make our writing better and add more details. Mrs. Maggart wrote a story about our class going to hear Mr. Santiago speak and we helped her to revise it, or make it better. We read it over and over, looking for places to "plant our carrots" and add more details or missing words. Then, we practiced in our Writer's Notebooks revising stories.

In Science, we talked about changing the different forms of matter. We picked a solid, a liquid, and a gas. Then, we discussed at our table groups all of the ways we could change the properties of these forms of matter. We came up with some great ideas! We filled up a whole chart!

But scientists always test their ideas or theories. We did two labs this week. We decided to prove that we could change liquid. We decided that we could cool matter, or freeze it. We chose the liquids of juice, water, and salt water. Then, we decided that a freezer would change the temperature of these liquids. When we took them out their properties had changed! In fact, they had changed states of matter. Our liquids turned into solids!

Scientists always record their observations, predictions, and results.

Our 3 liquids before we changed their properties.

Now they are 3 solids!

Then, we decided we wanted to change solids. We wanted to change the temperature of a solid by melting it. We chose an ice cube. We predicted how long it would take us to change our solids. Then, we tried many different methods to melt our ice cubes while we timed how long it took for this change to occur. Finally, our cubes melted and we saw that we can change solids. We changed this solid into a liquid. Look at our graph and the time it took for us to melt our ice cubes!

We tried using our own body heat to melt the ice cubes.

We tried smashing the ice cubes to melt them.

We even tried the heat from the light bulbs in all of our classroom lamps.

We even tried running warm water over our ice cubes.

Our completed graph. Ask me how long it took my table group to melt our ice cubes.

We finished our week with a special parade put on by kindergarten: Community Helpers. Wow! We remembered when we did this parade only last year. It was neat to see how the kindergartners had dressed up like different community helpers. It gave us lots of ideas of what we can be when we grow up!

Love,

Science...Matters!

Dear Family,

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,