This week we said "good bye" to our Painted Lady Butterflies. Most of the butterflies emerged from their chrysalids (there is still one chrysalis left in the butterfly house) and we set them free on Friday. It was amazing to watch them fly away! The children learned about the structure of butterfly (and moth) wings. The wings are covered in small scales that are different colours and it is the placement of the scales that determines the pattern on the wings. The wing patterns are also symmetrical. Both butterflies and moths belong to the Order Lepidoptera, which means "scaly wings" in Latin. The students finished writing their butterfly journals and learned how to fold a paper origami box to hold one empty chrysalis to remind them of this class project.They even made small, symmetrical paper butterflies to decorate the tops of the boxes!
In Math, the class reviewed and practiced how to tally information from a research question and how to graph the results. They also reviewed basic multiplication and division facts.The students also created their own dice to use for the homework activity for this week.
In Art, the class reviewed the math concept of how two dimensional shapes move across a surface (translation, rotation, reflection) and how some shapes can be put together, like tiles on a floor, without any spaces in-between. These patterns are also called tessellations. They learned about the Dutch mathematician/artist M. C. Escher (1898-1972) who is famous for his tessellation art. The students each created their own flat shape and began to create their own tessellation art.
In Writing, the children learned about synonyms (words with a similar meaning) and how to use commas when writing a list. The children continued researching and writing their facts about the plant or tree they chose for their science posters. The class reviewed how to play the cooperative story writing game using two dice. After writing a story with a partner, the partners read aloud their stories to the class.
In Reading, the class began a guided reading project of the classic book Black Beauty. We are fortunate to have 12 copies of this novel and we are using these books to chorally read the story together. The story of Black Beauty was written by English author Anna Sewell in 1877. It was one of the first books to have the story told from the perspective of the animal, in this case, a horse. The author wrote the book to help prevent people from mistreating animals. This is a great connection to our pioneer unit as it depicts life in England 138 years ago.
In Science, the students studied the seeds in an apple.They each dissected the the apple to count the number of seeds inside and identified the stem, blossom end and seed ovaries. The students learned the story of a real man, John Chapman (1774-1845), also known as, Johnny Appleseed who is, in part, responsible for apple trees being commonly found in the northern US. The students also read and discussed a non-fiction story about a common plant found where we live, the dandelion. They also looked at seed cones and needles from a blue spruce (coniferous) tree.
In Social Studies, the students presented their research on buildings commonly found in a Pioneer Village. The videos of these presentations can be found in a separate posting.
At the end of the week, the children began rehearsing for their performance at the Primary Concert on June 10th.
Books read aloud this week:
Owls in the Family by Farley Mowat (finished)
Johnny Appleseed by Steven Kellogg
Butterfly Alphabet by Kjell B. Sanved
Butterfly House by Eve Bunting
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