Weekly Update-December 16

Announcements

There will be no Friday folders or Weekly Journals next week. I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday and winter break!

We had our final two classes with Mrs. Zapata this week. On Monday, we explored vitamins and minerals. Students got to try the super food, spinach, as well as mandarin oranges. We learned how to look at food labels to see how much of our daily vitamins the item contains.

In the Classroom

In math this week, students studied arrays by making their very own set of array cards. They were in charge of labeling these cards with the number sentence and product. We used these cards to play games that involved students recognized factors of numbers.

We started the next part of our non-fiction writing unit this week. Students will be asked to create an expert book. We brainstormed topics in which we feel like we are already experts. We also created a chart that shows what we will need to do before, during, and after this unit. 

In reading this week, our focus skill was inferring. Students were asked to infer what the author was saying without the author directly saying it. We used a book called More than Marionettes to practice this skill. The students loved learning about the different kinds of puppets!

In science this week, we explored the force of magnetism. We started with students making predictions about what magnets will stick to. Students had some great predictions and were surprised about some of the items in their bags. 

We also role played the interactions between magnets, ferromagnetic objects (those attracted to magnets), and non-ferromagnetic objects. 

Upcoming Events

December 20-Winter Room Party 2:15-3:00

December 21-January 3-Winter Break

January 4-School Resumes

January 16-No School, MLK Jr. Day

Weekly Update-December 9

Announcements

Our Winter Room Party is coming up quickly! We still have 2 spots available if you are willing to help. Please use the link below to sign up. 

http://www.signupgenius.com/go/4090a4baaa723aa8-winter

We continued to have fun learning about health from Mrs. Zapata this week. On Monday, we talked about carbohydrates and sampled cous cous. We also did every level of physical activity from a relaxing walk, to jumping jacks, to push-ups!

When Mrs. Zapata came back on Thursday, we talked about Fat. Students looked at a menu from a fast food restaurant and compared grams of fat in different food items. They then did a taste test between chip 1(regular Lay's chips) and chip 2 (baked Lay's chips.) Almost every student said the baked chips tasted just as good and we learned you can have more of them for less grams of fat. Make sure to look in the Friday folder for more information from Mrs. Zapata.

In the Classroom

In math this week, we continued learning about multiplication. We finished our Skip Counting books and moved on to our next task. We were asked to find different arrangements for a certain amount of chairs. This led to a discussion of arrays as a multiplication tool. We will continue studying arrays next week. 

We completed our inventor research papers this week in writing. Students shared these on Thursday. Next week, we will begin the second part of our Informational unit where students compose an expert piece. 

We had lots of science this week! We started the week by sharing our machines to save our tigers. See the below videos to view how the machines turned out.

We then discussed other forces such as gravity and friction. Students completed ramp races to test out different surfaces and how they affect friction. 

Finally, we shared our inventions on Thursday! The students had a blast seeing what everyone designed.   We especially loved catapulting objects across the room.  : )

Upcoming Events

December 20-Winter Room Party 2:15-3:00

December 21-January 3-Winter Break

January 4-School Resumes

January 16-No School, MLK Jr. Day

Weekly Update-December 2

Announcements

Our Winter Room Party is coming up quickly! We still have 3 spots available if you are willing to help. Please use the link below to sign up. 

http://www.signupgenius.com/go/4090a4baaa723aa8-winter

The Holiday Open House is next week. I sent an email Friday about this annual Paxton Keeley event. Please let me know if you have any questions about it. Here is the schedule again. 

Grade Level	Perform in Gym	Open House in Classroom
5th Grade	11:15 am
Choir	11:35 am	11:55-12:15
3rd Grade	11:55 am	12:15-12:35
4th Grade	12:15 pm	12:35-12:55
2nd Grade	1:05 pm	1:25-1:45
Kindergarten	1:25 pm	1:45-2:05
1st Grade	1:45 pm	2:05-2:25

We will be having a special guest from Mizzou teach us about health in December. Here are some pictures of Mrs. Zapata telling us about the important nutrients we need and students demonstrating how much physical activity you must do to stay healthy. 

In the Classroom

We have started Multiplication! This week, we made lists of things that come in groups in the real world. For example, there are 7 days in a week. We then used these lists to make multiplication problems, such as how many days would there be in 3 weeks? Each student made their own problem for our class book. We also made skip counting books. These resources will be helpful to us as we get deeper into the concepts of multiplication.

In writing this week, students have been working on their famous inventor research paper. Students completed first drafts of their 5-paragraph papers. We also started typing the reports. We are excited to share the finished pieces with you at the Open House.

In reading this week, we studied vocabulary. We used a graphic organizer to choose various vocabulary words from our Shared Reading book, Fossil Seekers. Each student was also part of a guided reading group that focused on vocabulary in a non-fiction book. Ask your third grader what non-fiction topic they studied this week in reading!

We had a special guest teacher for Science this week. Mrs. Finke, our media specialist, came up every day to help us with a science unit on Force. Students were put into groups, given an iPad with plans, and a Vex Kit. They were then asked to use the kit and the plans to make an inclined plane, a lever, and a pulley. We had so much fun creating our simple machines!

At the end of the week, they were given another task. They had to imagine they were at a tiger exhibit, and a tiger fell into a moat. With their group, they had to make a blueprint for a complex machine that would lift the tiger out of the moat and back onto safe ground (the top of the text books.)  They then got to actually make the complex machine!

Upcoming Events

December 9-Winter Open House (see schedule above)

December 20-Winter Room Party 2:15-3:00

December 21-January 3-Winter Break

January 4-School Resumes

January 16-No School, MLK Jr. Day