Our first full month together has come to a close and it's been fun to see how much progress we've already made!
This week in Project Block, we continued our critique and feedback activity inspired by Austin's Butterfly. We had the opportunity to provide and receive feedback after each of our drafts, which really allowed for us fine-tune our drawings! After seeing their drafts (and progress) in succession, our mindful artists felt prideful and empowered...and rightfully so! They gave commendable effort in both their drawings and feedback.
Our scientists have spent the week observing, describing, and measuring matter. Third grade enjoyed a round of Mystery Matter, creating riddles for each other to solve by describing properties of various objects in the classroom.
Both third and fourth graders used their knowledge of science tools to measure and describe solids and liquids. Fourth graders identified two different ways to measure volume of an object depending on its state of matter.
Second graders explored, described, and compared solids and liquids. We learned that there are many ways to classify, or group, objects based on their properties.
All of our SBLC mathematicians were busy problem solvers this week. 2nd graders worked on addition and subtraction word problems using part/whole relationships. They noticed whether the action of the problem involved combining or separating and even used their hands to model the appropriate equation. We wrote our own addition and subtraction word problems, many of which were inspired by Suzie (our class guinea pig for the next 2 weeks).
3rd graders solved addition and subtraction word problems as well, just using a few different strategies and tools. We used open number lines, bar models, and learned the importance of estimating to make sure our answers are reasonable. We also explored some fun math tech tools to help us show our thinking with virtual manipulatives.
4th graders solved addition and subtraction problems using decimals. We compared similarities and differences between computation with whole numbers and decimals, then decided there were really more similarities. We also developed specific strategies like lining up the decimal points so we could use place value relationships if we chose to add or subtract vertically. We decided that our most important strategy was to estimate first. That way we would already have a reasonable answer in mind and could check that our exact answer made sense.
SBLC readers and writers have been hard at work analyzing character, summarizing, and synthesizing. Second Graders are comparing and contrasting Mo Willems' books, bringing together ideas on his style as an author. Third Graders have jumped in to A Long Walk to Water, and have expanded their knowledge of Sudan's culture and history through Salva's experience. They have been actively creating predictions supported by text evidence, and summarizing events to synthesize them to find the main struggle. Fourth Grade have developed character studies to follow Phoebe and her grief process.
As writers, we've continued our spelling centers with developmental patterns and studied discrete skills. We've analyzed portions of sentences and constructed complete thoughts, identifying subject and predicate in Second. Third Grade is mastering homophones such as there, their and they're as well as completing reading responses in letter form. Fourth is honing their skills on expository.
Enjoy reading their Instant Replays this weekend. Feel free to ask them questions to get them to dig deeper in explaining what they learned, and encourage them to write down more that they think of. Don't forget to initial the most recent entry each week.
Keep an eye out for Conference Sign-Ups this coming week with your homeroom teacher. We look forward to seeing you!
Enjoy the beautiful weekend!
Team SBLC
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