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Wonderful Words

We've been learning about how powerful our peers can be in helping us look at our work and encouraging each other through positively framed words. We discovered that, with Kind, Specific, and Helpful feedback, we are energized to improve upon our work.



























Reading and Language Arts
As our novel studies continue, we are delving deeper into Signposts, our characters, and examining how authors put together their stories. We are also up to our ears in a great Vocabulary Study with words that tie into the fabulous Science projects we are working on. We learned 6 strategies to get at words' meanings. Sometimes, looking at synonyms helps us not only understand variations of the specific word, but learn other words and their usage. We learned that synonyms are related, BUT, may have different, more precise meanings...so they aren't necessarily interchangable. We are really building our word banks. As Fourth Grade worked with "revitalization," Gavin found that, "Remodel is related but it means when you have something outdated, you upgrade it," Will Hoard enjoyed that, "There is an online thesaurus with lots of synonyms." Zachary learned, "One way to find out what words that you don't know mean is by going on Google Images." Ask your kids what their word is!

Math 
Fourth graders started the week off talking about financial institutions. We read a book titled And the Total Is that lead us into coming up with a new hobby or activity. We then figured out how much it would cost to start this new hobby. We ended the week learning about Dot Plots and Stem and Leaf Plots.One of our fourth graders, Raquel thinks, "Stem and Leaf Plots are fun!"

Third graders learned about budgeting and spending decisions. We read Uncle Jed's Barbershop, A Chair for My Mother, and Little Nino's Pizzeria. These stories had good examples of making financial decisions. We also made an Acrostic poem using the word BUDGET to help us remember how important it is to budget our money. Our third grader Liam, "Discovered different types of good and bad spending decisions."

Second graders enjoyed reading and making pictographs. We surveyed our class to find everybody's
favorite subject, color, and food then we made bar graphs with our data.


Science
We've been taking our understanding of life cycles and environments further this week with various projects. Second graders have been working with partners to create their own life cycle puppet show! They've applied what they learned about our Painted Lady Butterflies and spent the week writing, revising, and typing their scripts. Mayuri learned, "A script has the character's name, then a colon and last, what they say."



Third graders presented their drought projects and practiced providing effective feedback to each other. Josi remembers, "We critiqued people's brochures, posters, and presentations with K.S.H. feedback: kind, specific, and helpful." Next week, they'll have the opportunity to apply the suggestions made by their peers to improve their presentations.

Fourth grade continued their research of post-forest fire revitalization. They've synthesized and organized their information and are inserting it--along with pictures--into a brochure. Aliza discovered, "The more pixels a picture has, the better quality it is."They are in the early stages but are on their way to some tremendous creations!

Wishing you a wonderful (wet) weekend,
Team SBLC

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