New Science Unit!

Today we began a new science unit that will take us through the end of April.  This month we will be focusing on ecology and ecosystems.  During the unit we will be exploring our local ecosystem, comparing habitats, discovering how environmental changes affect plants and animals, and measuring plants and trees in our school yard.  We are hoping to spend time outside during each of these lessons to get hands-on ecosystem learning. We will also be integrating science and literacy by reading My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George. This is book about a boy who goes to live alone in the forest.  We are hoping to make many connections to our science learning while reading this book.  Our work today consisted of reading a picture book to introduce the idea of ecosystems, going outside to explore our school yard habitat, and sharing all we know about ecosystems.

In math, we finished Unit 5 this week.  Our continued focus was on the concept of area. We found that area is an attribute of plane figures such as rectangles and squares, and is measured in square units.  We first measured paper rectangles and surfaces around the classroom and non-standard units and then we moved into estimating and measuring area in customary units: square inches, square feet, square yards.  We also investigated the connection between area and multiplication, discovering that the area of a rectangle can be found efficiently by multiplying the length and the width.  Next week we begin geometry!

In Writer's Workshop, we continued to work on our fairy tale adaptations. It is amazing how excited and engaged everyone is with this writing unit!  This week we worked on story telling our fairy tale adaptations first in order to find the language that would help readers see and feel what is happening in the story.  Be sure to ask your child about his or her second fairy tale adaptation!

During Reader's Workshop, we continued reading Make Way for Dyamonde Daniel.  Dyamonde Daniel is a third grader who has just moved to a new school and is trying to make friends.  She is very similar to the character, Opal, from Because of Winn Dixie. This week we compared Opal and Dyamonde's reactions to problems and adversity, looking to see if they had similarities or differences.  We also made opinions about Opal and Dyamonde, such as who is the better friend and who is the better problem solver and had to find examples in the text to support our opinions.  Way to go readers!

Have a great weekend!