Did you know... The Just Move it Challenge is right around the corner!
The Just Move it! Challenge 5k and 1 Mile run/walk fundraiser will be held on April 22nd at South Middle School! This is a great family and community event that raises money for ABC25 grants. Please consider participating as a runner/walker or a volunteer and help Dryden bring home the participation trophy this year!! It would be so much fun to have interested students in our class run or walk together! If you and your family are thinking about participating and would like to stir up interest in our class and help to designate a time and place for our classmates to meet up and participate together, please let me know. The kids would have a blast doing this as a group!
Early registration for the JMI Challenge is now open to all walkers and runners! Please go to registration. In order to guarantee that you receive a t-shirt for the race, you must register before April 7, 2017.
If anyone would like to volunteer at the event to help make this year's race a huge success, please sign up here. Thank you!
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Below are some photos I snapped during our week at school. We have come to the end of several things!
* We wrapped up our nonfiction reading unit and took an assessment to demonstrate our understanding of concepts we've covered
* We finished our science unit on land, wind, and water! The children learned about water erosion, wind erosion, and rapid changes to the land. They took a science assessment after reviewing these concepts in class.
* We finished unit 6 in math. They worked hard to practice array models, reviewed strategies for solving addition and subtraction problems, and developed procedures to prepare them to solve multiplication and division problems.
* We finished a full round of Fountas & Pinnell reading assessments! I am astounded by the progress the children have made in the area of reading. We will be tweaking our reading groups according to our new reading levels and will be back to our guided reading this week!
* We reached the end of the 2nd Trimester of school! The children took a review spelling test, took an assessment of their addition/subtraction math facts, and completed a self-report card this week, too! I look forward to sharing all of these samples of your child's progress with you at our upcoming parent/teacher conference in March.
In the LMC this week, we started our new social studies unit which is a cultural comparison between the United States and the country of Australia. Mrs. O'Kelly prepared a lesson using the Nearpod app to pique the children's interest in our new topic! They are so excited!
They started off by answering some questions about Australia to see how much they already know.
Then they viewed pictures from each of the Australian Territories that we will be studying! The children will be working in small groups to research one particular territory and find all of the wonderful reasons they think we should visit there. Then they will make a commercial to persuade us!
One of our last lessons in our science unit was to witness how erosion works. The children used a cube to represent a house sitting on a mountain. We made it "rain" on the mountain and watched what happened to the house. We noticed shifting, tilting, and tumbling. We noticed water pouring downward gathering chunks of dirt and rocks on its way.
The children were challenged to think about ways to prevent erosion. They were given a variety of supplies including toothpicks, popsicle sticks, and plastic wrap and designed a way to stop erosion from moving their house. The children sketched their designs before our trial run!
We gathered at each station to witness the levels of erosion taking place at each group. The children were inspired by each other's ideas! They thought carefully about why each house moved- or didn't move- after watching each demonstration. They thought about ways they would tweak their design to improve it and cause even less erosion the next time!
The children noticed that each group's design looked very different, and included multiple ways to prevent the erosion. After looking at each design, they wanted to race back to their group to tweak their own!
I loved listening to the children's observations and reasoning about what they think caused their house to move, or not move. They thought of ways to make their design stronger, and protect their house further from erosion.
As a result of our lessons, the children decided they would NOT like to live on the side of a mountain or a hill! :)
It was time to switch gears and prepare for our "trip" to Australia on Monday! We watched a slideshow about places and landmarks we will be sure to visit during our trip. We thought about things we'll need and different types of clothing we should wear while exploring the outback, billabongs, beaches, and big cities in this land down under!
We were so happy to welcome Charlie's parents in as special star student guests on Friday! Charlie demonstrated how a ball and an egg roll in very different ways. The children observed the ball rolling straight and even, while the egg rolled in a circular motion in a very wobbly way. We learned from Charlie that the shape of the egg protects it from rolling out of the bird's nest!
Charlie's mom shared a favorite story of Charlie's that got us thinking about what Santa might be up to now that the Christmas season is over. It's hard to picture him in any other place than the North Pole. The class loved this story!
Charlie had a terrific star week! He always brings smiles and fun to our classroom! Charlie shares his clever thinking and interesting connections to concepts we are learning at school, embedding his love of nature and his amazing travel experiences which enhance our learning! Thank you for adding so much interest and fun to our classroom, Charlie!
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