Roller Coaster Crazy!!

This week the students participated in the roller coaster challenge.  Using information they learned in science about motion, the students were given a challenge.  With their runways and a marble, the students needed to create a roller coaster with at least one hill and one loop.  The marble had to start at the beginning of the runway and run all the way through to the end without falling off.  All three groups were able to complete the challenge.

I mentioned last week that the students were researching sea turtles.  This week the project was completed.  We created sea turtles and typed up the reports during computer class.  The students did a great job on both.

This week in reading our essential question was "How are offspring like their parents?"  We read about several animals and how the adults take care of their babies.  The students were fascinated to learn about the emperor penquins and how the dad stays with the egg for two months without eating.  They also thought it was funny to learn that the adult wolves will chew food and spit the chewed food into the pups' mouths.  

We finished our Place Value unit in math with an assessment.  I will be showing you the results of this test at conference.  After Thanksgiving break, we will be starting our new unit, Two Digit Addition and Subtraction.  

To celebrate the upcoming holiday we had some fun making Turkey Glyphs.  The students created a turkey that they colored according to how they answered certain questions.  Can you guess which turkey is your child's?

Today was our annual JDRF walk.  Our school is committed to raising money for juvenile diabetes.  Hopefully, we will have raised enough money to do our annual teacher dances.

Remember half days next week....off Thursday and Friday.  Have a great weekend. 

All About Sea Turtles

This week our essential question in reading was "What are features of different animal habitats?".  We read about the coral reef and prairie dogs.  We also read a story about sea turtles and how they  face many dangers, especially from humans.  We used this information and read several other books about sea turtles.  The students took notes from the books we read.  They will take this information and turn it into a report on sea turtles.  Look for these reports when you come for your conference.

We continued to practice skip counting and counting within 1000 this week.  We practice each morning by playing an around the world game where we count by 5's, 10's and 100's.  For several of the students, counting by 5's seems to be the most difficult.  To help your child, you could practice counting by 5's at home starting at various numbers like 250 or 455.

For two days this week, we had our CAP program.  The topic of this program was bullying and how to stop it from happening to you and how to help others that are getting bullied.  The presenters acted out scenarios that would happen at school and gave the students strategies to stop it.  They also learned a fun song to sing.  The lyrics are here:

Don't forget...conferences start next week which means we are on a half-day schedule both Thursday and Friday.  I look forward to speaking to you in person.

Have a great weekend.