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Intention

This week we changed the location and style of how we set our intention for the day. Instead of a sentence in our Take Off and Landing Notebooks, you will see one word at the top of every day in our agenda. We talked about how that change will allow us to see our intention several times throughout the day, which will probably help us stay the course on our intentions!

In ELA, we finished Malala's book! It's been an amazing journey. It has had us questioning, discussing, wondering, setting personal goals...simply put, a life changer for us as a community.Third Graders have been given instructions for next week's Vocabulary Parade. We will be walking the halls next Friday first thing in the morning, so feel free to join us to view our creativity with words!

In social studies, we examined three different genres around the same topic. We learned about Henry "Box" Brown and his incredible sacrifice to escape slavery in 1849. So many questions here too! It brought to a very human level what that time in history was like.

SBLC mathematicians are developing a deeper understanding of the 4 basic operations and how to use grouping tools like parentheses to communicate order. We learned to play a game called Target 20 that builds our computational fluency and incorporates lots of practice with all 4 operations. The only materials you need are 4 dice and tools for writing equations, so it's a great game to enjoy at home! We also worked with persistence at an open-ended group problem, using all 4 operations to estimate the total number of pencils the entire SBLC uses in a year. Groups developed pathways, revised them for accuracy and clarity, then presented to our community of mathematicians. As skeptical audience members, we questioned each other to better understand how each group developed their estimate and to decide which numbers truly lead us to the most accurate possible answer. Great discussions!

Our scientists have learned that fungi play a key role in decomposition and are a huge part of the food chain. We constructed our terrariums and aquariums, and will observe changes over the next few weeks. We'll eventually join the two parts into one closed ecosystem. It's been messy, exciting work and we'll learn a lot next week about the role of each producer and consumer that we added. Each fits into the ecosystem in a unique way, so we'll become experts on the different parts and then teach each other.

In project, we have a goal to make a game using some ecosystem research we will be doing. This week, we looked at mentor examples to set our sights on what kind of a game that would fit our purposes. We examined boards, pieces, directions, and the game's objectives to become experts in this genre.




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