The End of Shapes, Halves, and Symmetry

WOW! What a week. We did some fun activities with fractions this week. We used colored tiles to find rectangles that can be divided in fourths (four colors) and thirds (three colors). The students did very well describing their rectangles. We also reviewed columns, rows and the area of our rectangles. Great Job!
Symmetry was another concept we covered in class last week. The students made pictures using symmetrical shapes cut from folded paper. Fun, Fun, Fun!

In Science we learned more about Polar Bears. Our class participated in two labs about Polar Bears.

1. Does the Polar Bear have an adaptation to help prevent its feet from sliding on the ice? If so, What?
2. Why do animals that live in Polar Regions have an extra layer of fat called blubber?

Ask your child to tell you all about our Labs in Science. They really enjoy them.

In Everyday Counts Calendar Math we started the week measuring 1 cup a day. Our goal is to figure out how many cups are in a pint, how many pints are in a quart, and how many quarts are in a gallon. To make it more fun we are adding blue food coloring to the water. Friday was the 129th day of school! 51 MORE DAYS TO GO!

The students are learning to write the day of school (Today's Number) in expanded form, rounding to the nearest 10 and discuss how many groups of 10's and 1's.

Thank you for all your support! Have a great week!

A Week of Rectangles

This week was all about building and describing rectangles. The students learned about the columns and rows in a rectangle and the area and perimeter of a rectangle. We also discussed a congruent rectangle. This rectangle has the same size and same shape.

We ended the week with halves and not halves rectangles. With half and not halves rectangles the students used two colors of tiles to make a rectangle that was half one color and half another color. The special rule about this rectangle is that we must use two colors. After the students created their rectangle they had to write how many columns, how many rows and tell me what the area of their rectangle was. It was a great way to introduce area, perimeter and fractions.

Did you know that Friday was the 124th day of school. WOW! time flies when you are learning and having fun!

For the month of March in Everyday Calendar Math we will

• explore and describe attributes of a sphere, cone and cylinder.
• read the clock to the quarter hour
• see fractional parts
• explore capacity with cups, pints, and quarts.

Please encourage your child to tell you something about what they have learned during Math, Science, or Social Studies. Thank you for all your support! Have a great week!

Tutoring with Mrs. Lankford

I am tutoring students on Mondays, Tuesdays, and /or Fridays starting at 8:15 - 8:45 am. Please come prepared with questions or things you might need help with. Tutoring is helping the student understand the concepts being taught in class.
If I am not available because of meetings or conferences I will let the students know the day before. If you need help please come by my cottage!

Weekly Reader

Using our Weekly Reader in Social Studies we discussed Presidents' Day which was February 18th. George Washington was our 1st president, Abraham Lincoln was our 16th president and George Bush is our 43rd president. We also discussed Famous African Americans in honor of Black History Month. Rosa Parks made history. She helped change a law that was unfair to African American people.
Nikki Giovanni is a writer. She is the author of books and poems for children and adults. She wrote a children's book called Rosa. It is about the life of Rosa Parks. So many people have made an impact on our society. Thank you!

Critters Everywhere!

Our Critters invaded or cottage today, luckily the predator only caught a couple of them. Congratulations boys and girls you really do understand the word camouflage. What a week! Thank you to all the parents who helped make sure their child had his/her critter at school by today.

In Science we have been discussing the adaptations (camouflage, body parts) animals have to help them survive in their environment. Today we did an awesome Animal Adaptations lab. We had 10 stations set up in our cottage and the students learned some incredible things about birds and alligators. A HUGE THANK YOU to Miss Russell. We couldn't have done it without you!

In Math we had a busy week describing , ordering, building and covering rectangles. We learned that these shapes are called Quadrilaterals (4-sided figures) We also discussed rows and columns. The students had to create several different sizes of rectangles. Each rectangle had a different number of rows and columns. Ask your child about rows and columns.

We also discussed the shapes hexagon, triangle, square, rhombus, and trapezoids. Last week we played the game Predict and Cover using these shapes. In the activity Predict and Cover students use the relationships they've discovered among the pattern blocks to make predictions about how many blocks it takes to cover shapes. So much fun while learning. We also used geoblocks and cubes to aide with our activities. Another great week! Wow! today was the 119th day of school.

Critter Project

The students are learning about habitats in Science. They are expected to create a critter to live in our classroom which will be the critter's habitat. Please this project should not stress anyone out. It is a fun way to extend our lessons on camouflage! :) Please be creative! Paper towels rolls, toilet paper rolls, yawn, pipe cleaners, paper plates, colored paper, alumini foil are a few suggestive items. If you are having a problem with this please write me a note in your child's planner. Again be creative and have fun. I hope the mysterious predator will not catch your critter!
The project is due Thursday, February 28, 2007.

The Jacksonville Zoo

Our field trip to the Jacksonville Zoo was a great way to end our week! The weather was beautiful and at the Zoo we learned about several different animals and their habitiats. This goes along with what we are learning in Science.

In Science this week we did a lab activity to determine how camels can walk across sand without sinking. First we classified the camel we would be studying.
Camels are native to the deserts of Asia and North America. Two kinds of desert camels are dromedaries and bactrians. Dromedaries have one hump and Bactrians have two humps. Camels are the only animals that can carry heavy loads from place to place in the desert because they can go for long periods without eating or drinking water.
Did you know that a camel's hump doesn't carry water, as some believe. Their humps are filled with fat, which is a built-in food supply.
From our lab we determined that camels can carry heavy loads and still walk easily on soft sand where trucks would get stuck. A camel's feet are large, so the weight on them is spread out. The students enjoyed this lab activity.

In Math we finished the unit Putting Together and Taking Apart. We started a new unit called Shapes, Halves, and Symmetry. In this unit we will be investigating geometry and fractions. We will investigate relationships among shapes and put shapes together to build other shapes. We will also investigate rectangular arrays and symmetry.We sorted and identified shapes by various attributes.
You can help your child at home by looking for opportunities to talk about shapes, fractions, and symmetry.

• Look for different shapes in the environment. Where do you see rectangles and squares?
• Look for arrays in floor tiles, calendars, and window panes.
• Look for designs that are symmetrical.
• Look for patterns in fabric, wallpaper, flags, or other places that are half one color and half another. How can your child tell that the patterns are half and half?

Thank you for all your help and support. Have fun exploring these ideas with your child.

Happy New Year Chinese Style!

Celebration Time! In Social Studies we learned about the Chinese New Year. February 7th was the Chinese New Year. The celebration last 15 days. Each Chinese year is named after one of 12 animals. This is the Year of the Rat. People prepare for the holiday before the actual day. They clean their homes and decorate them with flowers and poems. The poems are happy messages of good luck. On the first night of the celebration families and friends gather for a special meal. Many people wear new red clothing. People perform the dragon dance in a parade. The dragon is made of silk paper, and bamboo. It may stretch more than 100 feet!

In Science we did a Catus Lab. The lab experiment helped us understand how a catus live in the desert with such little water.

In Math we reviewed money values and discussed symmetry. We also learned about range, median, and mode.
Range is the difference between the highest piece of data and the lowest piece of data.
Median is the piece of data that occurs in the middle when the data is arranged from least to greatest.
Mode is the value of the pieces of data that occurs the most in a set of data.
The students must remember to organize the data from least to greatest FIRST!
It's awesome when the children understand and enjoy Math. Yeah!

Celebrating the 100th Day of School!

We started the week with visualizing what is given in a problem and what is missing. The students are understanding and developing ways to approach different sorts of addition and subtraction situtations.
We are continuing to discuss and use a variety of strategies when solving problems.
Decomposing and the open number line are a few favorites!

On our homework this week we introduced the "x" and "y" axis. We discussed points on a coordinate grid. Please refer to the study guide in your child's homework folder for help.

Yes, we made it! the 100 th day! how exciting. We skip counted by 5's and 10's. If the student keep the game going they got a piece of gum and a lollipop. It was hilarious because some of them were not paying attention to the number before they were called on. If there was a mess up we had to start over. We also skip counted by 2's. In the end all the students enjoyed the bubble gum and lollipops. We also mixed 100 different types of snacks to enjoy, it was a nice way to end the week.

Parts and Wholes

In Math the students played a game called Cover-Up. To play Cover-Up, one player puts some cubes or counters on a table and counts them. Their counts need to be accurate, so I encouraged the students to check their counts. One player then takes away some of the counters and hides them under a piece of paper. Together the students use the remaining counters to figure out how many are hidden. Solutions are verified by counting the hidden counters.

We played a few rounds as a group hiding a different amount of counters in each round,
then the students played girls against boys. It was a great way to work on Math problems with the missing part. Ask you child about the game Cover-Up.

In Science we finished our unit on the Weather.
In the coming weeks our class will start a new unit centered on The Processes of Life & How Living Things interact with the Environment.