This afternoon we did a design challenge called Save Fred.

Fred has been spending his summer boating on the great lakes. But he’s not too bright (after all, the brains of worms are pretty small): He’s never learned how to swim and he never wears his life preserver. The worst has happened! His boat has capsized and he’s stuck! Fortunately, his life preserver is in the boat, but unfortunately he does not know how to reach it without falling off and drowning. 

Problem:

How can you and your partner save Fred using only 4 paper clips. You may not touch Fred, the boat, or the life preserver directly with your hands.

Congratulations to Ellorie and Emma they were the first group to save Fred!

 

Today we completed our schema movie projects.  I can't wait for us to share them with Mrs. Petit's class.  They did a wonderful job learning all about schema, writing their scripts, performing, and then producing their video.  Check out the movies on the bottom of our schema page.
schema project

In science this week we are learning about the 3 states of matter.  Yesterday we figured out what the 3 states were and explored the properties of solids.  Today we worked on the properties of liquids. 
Here are some of our pictures of our observations.

"All liquids feel wet." Ellorie
"Some liquids are sticky."Alberto
"When you shake some liquids it makes bubbles." Jacob
"When you roll liquids they stay on the bottom of the container." Emma

Wow!!!  We finished working on our community project today.  The students had to work in groups to design a community.  They had to use their schema about Grapevine to help them in their plan.
I can wait for you to see them.
 Group 1
Group 2
Group 3 
Group 4
Group 5

Today we are continuing our work on our schema project to help Ms. Petit's class.  Most of the class was working on determining if the connections we were making were deep meaningful connections that would help us understand the story or if they were flat connections that were just coincidences.  The students worked their way through many activities to make sure they could tell the difference then they made a poster showing us their learning.  Check out a couple wonderful examples.

Today we were learning about how communities are planned.  We talked about where houses and business are located and why.  Then we looked at Grapevine and talked about how our community is laid out.  We looked at Grapevine using Bing maps.  We used the bird's eye view to see the real buildings.  We had fun looking at our school, area attractions, and our homes. 
Take a look for yourself.

We have been working hard on our schema project to help Ms. Petit's class.  Some of the groups spent today looking at the 3 types of schema.  Text to Self, Text to Text, and Text to Real World.  They then designed a poster showing the 3 kinds of schema.  Check out some of the great work.

Wow today we were finishing our map projects.  The kids work just amazed me.  They worked so hard to make sure they finished and completed all the tasks necessary for the project.  You will have to look at some of the wonderful treasure maps.
Map Project Treasure Maps

Watch a sample movie about "What is schema?"

Today we started our schema connections project.  We are going to learn all about schema so we can make movies to introduce Ms. Petit's Kindergarten class to schema.  One of the first things we are making sure we know is, "What is schema?"  There were some great examples.  Check out one above.

In spelling this week we are working on consonant digraphs.  The spelling words for the week can always be found on the newsletter.  Make sure you are practicing these words for the test on Friday.  A great way to practice them is using spellingcity.com   The login is sarahganus and the password is student.  When logged in you just search for the list with this weeks date.  They have all sorts of activities you can do to practice your words. 

The scholars have worked really hard this week on learning the Daily 5 Literacy Stations.  The Stations are Read to Self, Read to Partner, Listen to Reading, Work on Writing, and Work on Words.  The Daily 5 is a series of literacy tasks which students complete daily while the teacher meets with small groups or confers with individuals.  The Daily 5 is more than a management system or a curriculum framework – it is a structure that will help students develop the daily habits of reading, writing and working with peers that will lead to a lifetime of independent literacy. Here are some images of the students practicing Daily 5.

We started our map skills projects today.  We are going to learn our map skills to help Captain Rob find his lost treasure.  The kids will be learning about the continents, oceans, compass rose, map keys and landforms.  When the students feel they are proficient they will follow the clues to help find the treasure.  As a end project the kids will use their map skills to make their own map clues to a mystery treasure.