News for April 13, 2018
This week the children learned the story of wool from sheep to fabric, saw a live bald eagle and learned how math can be found everywhere!
Writing
Each student continued to write a “treasure jar” story based on his/her treasure jar. Most children have now finished the rough copy of his/her story and are now working on editing their sentences with pencil to catch and correct mistakes and to revise their work with coloured pen to add more information to their sentences to make their good writing even better. These stories will have the “good copy” written on long, narrow paper that will be wrapped around the jar making the jar a part of the final version of the book.
Reading
The class finished watching and comparing the book and the DVD of The Iron Giant story. They completed their Venn diagrams and wrote answers to some questions about the book and the film.
The students began learning about fairy tales by listing the titles of fairy tales that they already know. We also started a list of the things that make a fairy tale different from other stories.
The children started three separate Reader’s Theatre plays this week. The children worked in groups with me to read aloud the script for their group and then chose their parts for the play. Later in the week, the groups continued to rehearse their lines and began the process of how to “act” the part of his/her character. These will be performed and filmed next week and posted to the blog.
Math
The class started the unit on positional/spatial geometry. The students read and followed directions using positional words such as left/right, above/below. They had an introduction to using coordinates on a grid to show the position of an object. They also had a quick introduction to how positional math concepts are used to make maps and made a map of their own desk groups to show where their desks are located. At the end of the week, children also began to discuss how to measure “area” or the space inside a flat surface using blocks and cubes as units of measurement.
Science
The children attended an “Earth Rangers” assembly this week. They had a chance to see a real skunk, a peregrine falcon, a kestrel and a bald eagle! The children were invited to learn more about these animals and other animals by registering to become an “Earth Ranger”. Here is the website link:
Did you know that a peregrine falcon can reach speeds of 320 km per hour? That a bald eagle has a wingspan of 3 metres?
Art
The children made small looms out of cardboard and learned how to weave fabric! They used the wool that we dyed a few weeks ago to create the warp, or vertical lines of wool and used the math repeated pattern of “over, under” to weave the horizontal lines of wool that make up the woven fabric. The students will be creating bookmarks on these small looms. The class also learned about how larger looms make bigger pieces of fabric. (Looms were referenced in two of our read aloud books this week as well.) Here is a video of how a large standard floor loom works:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=FnbUF0wgIfw
The children also learned the story of wool from sheep to fabric. They saw a demonstration of carders (to clean and separate the strands of wool), a loom (by seeing a video and making their own small looms) and a spinning wheel. They also tried out, with a partner, twisting or spinning the wool fibres to make them stronger (dubbed “the power of the twist”).
Extra
On Friday, the class had a chance to watch a performance of the play, “The Lion KIng” presented by the grade 7 and 8 students of Spectrum School (who share our school building).
Books read aloud this week:
The Iron Giant (DVD - finished)
Pelle’s New Suit by Elsa Beskow
The Emperor’s New Clothes by Hans Christian Anderson (retold by Virginia Lee Burton)
2 comments:
So many great educational activities in your classroom!
Thanks! The children work very hard and we have a lot of fun too!
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