 |
| Students roasted apples over the fire at ECO on Wednesday We are in our final stretch of the school year! We began the week with a Farm to School lesson with our FTS coordinator, Kyle Weatherghogg. Students began planning for our raised bed garden. We discussed factors such as size of the garden, size of plants, forw time for plant maturity, and what plants need to grow, then students each planted a seed to start indoors to be transplanted into the garden at a later date. On Wednesday, we had a cool, wet morning in our outdoor classroom at ECO. After arriving at our designated campsite at the Elmore State Park, we started in the field where students discussed the water cycle and clouds. Then we played "cloud tag". In the tag version individuals who were tagged had to join their tagger for the next round (similar to how water molecules join other water molecules until they are too heavy and fall in the form of precipitation). After tag, and snack and a story, our focus lesson was about clouds. Carrie (White Tailed Deer) demonstrated a "cloud in a jar" experiment using warm water and ice to demonstrate how clouds are formed, then students used cloud viewers to identify the type of clouds in the sky and then recorded them in their ECO journals (along with the outdoor temperature). During forest choice students roasted apples over the fire and then added a little cinnamon and sugar before eating them.  On Friday we had a special guest from the Union Bank join us for part of our morning. Monica Wood is the Save for Success coordinator at the Union Bank. She works with schools to coordinate school banking. She talked to the students about the program and the importance of saving money. Students brought home information about the program in their Friday Folders. We hope to reinstate the Save for Success program at The Elmore School as an option for students next fall. In the meantime, accounts can be set up by visiting the Union Bank, if you are interested in getting an account started before the fall or you can return the form in your packet to me and I will get them back to Monica. During Writers Workshop students worked on finishing their book reviews. This will conclude our persuasive writing unit. We will conclude the year with a final narrative story with a focus on fiction. During math we continued working with fractions. First and second graders identified and showed fractions using circles and various polygons before moving on to comparing fractions using a bar model, Third graders began finding equivalent fractions by converting fractions by finding the scale factor. This added a new challenge for these students. We have been learning about Economics the past few weeks. This week our lesson focused on Producers and Consumers. This week, students brought home information about a project they need to complete. There is a letter to parents included with this. I encourage you to read it, if you have not already done so. Students are asked to create a product that could be "sold" or a service that could be provided. They need to create an example of the product (or drawing of it) or tell about the service they will provide including the importance of the product or service. There is planning sheet that goes along with the project. Projects are due on Monday, May 2nd. (If you child was absent this week, they will have extra time to complete the project.). Students were asked to complete these projects at home. We also started our last science unit this week. This unit will focus on the sky. During this unit we will be learning about weather and patterns in the sky. This week we learned about cloud formation and the moon cycle. Speaking of "homework"... I have decreased the amount of daily homework (based on our trial week). We are providing time during the school day to work on spelling, and I have not been sending math homework the past couple of weeks. That being said, students still have the "option" to bring spelling words home to practice, and any incomplete math work will be sent home. Students should still do nightly reading (10 minutes for first grade, 20 minutes for second grade, 30 minutes for third grade) and fill out their reading logs. Please let me know if you have any questions regarding our new homework expectations. Thank to our parent volunteers this week: Malinda Pearson and Caitlin Mahoney for joining us for ECO, and to Jes and Robb Wills for providing our delicious Hot Lunch on Friday! |
Announcements:(so many!) |
|
No comments:
Post a Comment