We have been studying about maps and their different features that help us read them. Yesterday we worked on understanding the compass rose and the directions north, south, east and west. We headed outside and used the compass app on my phone to identify the directions and then we practice them by running north, east, south and west! We also identified different playground equipment that was north, south, east or west of where we were standing. We then jumped on Google Maps and mapped out different routes to places close and far from us and talked about which directions we would have to travel to get there.
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After several days of work the kids finally got to present their information to 4th grade buddies! After we finished researching Walt Disney as a class students worked in pairs to create presentations in Keynote (like PowerPoint). They learned how to add and change text, add images, change backgrounds and add transitions between slides.
We have done a lot of reading and writing non-fiction throughout this year as a class. Now is the time for them to start diving into it based on their interests. Over the last few days partners and small groups have naturally formed based on their shared interests. We have groups studying Giant Pandas, Badgers, Toads, Coral and more! They worked together to read the information from books and have it read to them online (PebbleGo has been the best resource for this). We identified some essential questions readers would have when trying to learn about animals to help guide their research. Next students will start the process of taking their information and crafting it into a non-fiction text.
We kicked off our study of shapes by conducting an investigation on how many different ways we could make a hexagon using other shapes. They figured out 7 different ways to put together trapezoids, rhombuses (diamonds) and triangles to construct a hexagon shape. They will continue to explore using pattern blocks to construct and deconstruct different shapes to build their spatial awareness.
We read Welcome To The Neighborwood together as a class and worked on identifying important facts about each animal. It also led us into a conversation about how animals in the woods depend on each other to survive. Students then took their facts and created a nonfiction piece and created woodland animals out of paper. To deepen our understanding of needs/wants, goods/services and producers/consumers we held a Market Day event! Students were placed into "companies" and created proposals for goods and services they wanted to create and sell. They were approved by the CEO (Me!) and produced their goods and practiced their services. They created print advertisements for their products. Yesterday we held our Market Day and everyone had the opportunity to sell and purchase items. They had A LOT of fun with this!
As a culminating event for measuring length and time students engaged in the Measurement Olympics! They measured how far they could jump, how far they could throw cotton balls, how far they could blow a small pom-pom ball and organizing events in a day in time order.
Today we got to view a performance by some of our Japanese Moms! Singing, dancing and stories were so fun! This week we started learning what nouns and verbs are. We watched videos and read books to discover that nouns are people, places and things and verbs are actions. We called out things in our classroom that were nouns and played verb charades. Above we have pictures of kids showing: sleep, shop, dance and eat.
We have started talking about telling time on the clock. We are first developing our understand of how the clock is organized. Students were given one hour in the day to represent in a picture and then I asked them to work together as a team to organize those hours in a way that made sense. This launched a conversation about AM vs. PM hours and how a traditional number line goes from 1-12 but because of 12 being the time that transitions from AM to PM a clock timeline is more 12-11 and then repeats. We then transferred our clock timelines into circles and practiced telling time to the hour with our HUGE clocks!
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May 2015
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