Friday
We had a beautiful solo spots session today! The students were given the task of drawing a small part of a plant on a whole piece of paper. The goal was really for them to look at the small details of a plant. We had some beautiful sketches and drawings. Many students also had time to pick their own tasks and really enjoyed looking at and drawing the beautiful clouds we had in the sky today!
We worked on handwriting letter g today! In the Handwriting Without Tears program the g is made without picking up the pencil. It starts with a letter c, bumps the top line, and then goes down to add the tail.
Math Update:
We have started unit 2 which focuses on geometry concepts!
So far this week we have talked about circles, rectangles, rhombuses, hexagons, and triangles!
The students have been using our shape blocks to fill in outlines and have also been creating their own with a specific number of pieces.
Our goals for the next few lessons are:
*find different combinations of shapes that fill the same area
*decompose shapes in different ways
*examine how shapes can be combined to make other shapes
*altering designs to use more or fewer pieces
*developing visual images and language for describing 2-D shapes
Thursday
Today we did observations of our darkling beetle which is the adult stage of our mealworms. The students noticed some great details about their beetles. They counted 6 legs, 2 antenna, and 3 body parts. The students noticed small details such as lines on the abdomen, a slight red color to its body, segments on the antenna, and even teeny tiny little feet at the end of its legs!
We had a class discussion once we were done over some of the questions below, which you can feel free to talk with your child about tonight if you would like!
What do we call the different forms that insects change into?
stage
What was the first stage we observed our mealworms in?
larva
The mealworm sheds its skin so it can grow. What is this called?
molting
Mealworms have lines on their body called (segments).
What is the stage called when a mealworm does not eat or drink?
pupa
What is the last stage of a mealworm called?
adult
What is an adult mealworm called?
darkling beetle
We’ll be wrapping up our green challenge of recycling by cleaning out our collected medicine bottles tomorrow to get them ready for shipping. If you have any more laying around the house please send them in. We’ll also be checking on our class tree and outside in the afternoon for solo spots, so please be sure to dress your child for the weather!!
Wednesday
We’ve been watching our meal worm larva enter their pupa state and have a few beetles emerging in our classroom already! We’ll be looking at some of the beetles more closely tomorrow and working on a beetle observation page.
The students had Spanish, PE, and music this afternoon! Don’t forget to check the webpage of our specials teachers to get updates about what is happening in their classrooms. I haven’t checked all the pages, but I do know that Srta. Roman-Ahlgrim has a link to her newsletter that includes lists of the words the students are working on.
Coming home in folders tonight is a coupon for 1 free item at the clothing sale which starts tomorrow. PCCS families get to shop before the public from 1:00-3:00 tomorrow! And then the event is open up to the public at the times listed on the coupon. Come get some great deals!
Monday
Today we checked on our brassica plants and filled out an observation sheet on what we saw. Today the students saw 1 or 2 sprouts in their cup. We made a word bank of words that we could use to describe what we were seeing. The word bank included: small, green, plant, four, leaf, leaves sprout, growing, brown dirt, two, one, three, like clover, brassica. Ask your child to talk to you about what they observed during science today!
In handwriting we reviewed how to write the lowercase letter a!