Constellation replication

What can you spot in the night sky?  Students worked independently to make their representation of Canis Major, Orion or the Big Dipper using toothpicks and mini marshmallows.  Students loved wrapping up the unit with this activity and asking their peers to guess their constellations.  

Sky Guide is an amazing app to extend the learning beyond the classroom.  There is a free version and a pay version.    



        

Phases of the Moon

4 Oreo cookies, tooth picks and a visual is what these students used to help model the phases of the moon.  A few groups noticed that the phases each have an opposite phase and divided and conquered the task that way.  Those groups were able to complete the task rather quickly and accurately.    Some groups had several duplicates of phases and the students realized the value of communication and listening to their peers.   



         

Revising our thinking about the Earth, Sun and Moon

After our unit in CKLA on Astronomy, we explored with Science to help us better make sense of this new learning.  Students used the same materials as they did earlier in the unit and they were asked to use the models to demonstrate their understanding, revise their initial thinking of the relationship of the Earth, Sun, Moon, or form questions about their thinking.  They were shocked at how much knowledge they gained and how using actual models helped them see exactly what is happening when our naked eye cannot.  

      

Data collection and representation

Students are learning to make sense of problems in math and persevering in solving them by organizing, representing and interpreting data from their peers.  Students are exploring raw data in the classroom, thinking about what they think they know from the data, how to organize it in a way that makes sense to them and others and ask and answer questions about it.  Over the next two weeks students will come up with a survey question, make a plan for collecting the data, organize it, represent it and interpret the data.  Students will share their findings with their peers, write equations to match their findings and answer questions their peers have about the findings.


   

Hallway Read In

Here are a few photos from Tuesday's kick off event, the hallway read in.  Thank you to all the parents that joined us.  The students loved this and keep talking about how amazing it was that more than 500 people in one place were all doing the same thing, reading!      

Read a thon launch

Monday was the Read-a-thon launch assembly.  The students loved the idea of reading everywhere and anything.  The staff made a video to get the students excited.  You can view the video here.  Teachers shared their favorite books and why, we sang and danced in the name of reading.  It was a BLAST!  Here is the general information that went home last week about this month of fun!  A spirit week will be our wrap up to this month of fun and a whole school read-in in the gym.  Check out the timeline and come join in the fun. 


        

Peace lesson finale

Mrs. Sulecki brought an egg in to celebrate the last peace lesson and to represent how fragile each of us can be emotionally.  Looking at the egg, it is hard to know what it is like on the inside, hard boiled or raw.   Students reviewed each skill they learned this year by telling the class about a time they used the skill and what the outcome was.  As they each successfully shared, Mrs Sulecki wrapped the egg with straws to represent how w can protect ourselves and others by using these skills daily.  Once the students felt like they talked about all they knew, Mrs. Sulecki dropped the egg from waist height.  It didn't break!  Then she asked them if they thought that she could drop it from a chair, did they have enough skills to problem solve any tough situation and protect themselves and others?   She stood on the chair and dropped the egg.  Students were so excited to see that it didn't break.  Mrs. S. asked why it didn't break and the room erupted with how they protected it and how they can do that with people too.  What a fun lesson on making peaceful choices!

  

Story problem writing

Students look at a math equation and explore writing story problems for their peers to math the equation.  Math partners prove why or why not their story problem matches the equation.  This type of activity gives a clear picture of what students understand about math terminology:  partners, whole and it also shows if they can use reasoning to support their thinking.  They love the challenge!

  

Using a model to think about what we know

After reading about the rotation of the Earth on it's axis and the revolution of the Earth around the Sun, the students were given a model of the Earth and asked to reason through the new learning.  This activity will be revisited several times throughout this unit as the students gain more knowledge and a deeper understanding.  We will complete this unit with several hands on science activities and exploration.