During this four-day week the children prepared for the 100 Books event on Friday. They wrote, did math and made lots of other preparations for this event. A video of our celebration can be seen in a separate posting.
In math, the children took the 100 books that we have read aloud together so far this year and did math activities to learn more about the books. Working in groups, the children figured out how many books were written by female versus male authors (and graphed it), how many books were softcover versus hardcover (and graphed it), how many books were fiction, non-fiction or near-fiction (and graphed it). We also worked together as a class to estimate and then measure how long the 100 books were laid out horizontally end-to-end, how tall they were when piled vertically and how much they weighed. Finally, the students estimated and then counted how many pages were read aloud altogether. The children made signs and finished making over 250 bookmarks to give to guests as a "thank you" for coming to our party. The results of all this work can be seen in our 100 Books Party video that can be seen in a separate posting.
At the end of the week, the students learned how division is related to multiplication. They learned how to "deal" or allocated sequentially, objects into equal groups. They also learned how to write division math equations.
In our Touch Math research project, the students reviewed strategies to increase the speed and accuracy of solving two- and three-digit subtraction questions and did a timed practice every day.
In writing, the children edited (corrected mistakes) and revised (added words to make good writing even better) their stories written from the penguin character's point of view from the Oliver Jeffers book, Lost and Found. The students wrote good copies of their stories and these are now on display in the hallway outside of our classroom.
In science, the navy bean plants are growing well, now that they are in soil. The plants have the two cotyledons (first leaves) which are really the two halves of the original bean seed. The plant stem and leaves are very green from the chlorophyll pigment developed by exposure to the sun. We did an experiment where we put a germinated seed in soil with water in the dark in a sealed box. When we took out the plant on Thursday, it was white and light yellow in colour and growing low at the surface of the soil! This experiment proved that the plant needs the sun to activate the green chlorophyll colour. We also noticed that the plants "bend" toward the light coming from the classroom window. The ability of plants to "know" where the sun is called phototropism. The students learned about how some people think that talking nicely or singing songs to their plants help them grow better. Each day, the students are responsible for writing down their observations of their plants and to water them.
Books read aloud this week:
Pippi Longstocking by Astrid Lingren (chapter book)
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