Hard at work!

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A Peak at the Week

This week has been a busy one! We learned about Christopher Columbus and the jobs of explorers long ago. We also started a new writing project. We'll be writing personal narratives about a time we got hurt. The pictures show us brainstorming events we would want to write about.

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A busy day!

It seems like the hot, humid weather has broken, and that means it's time to focus in! Today we reviewed for tomorrow's math test by playing games that helped us practice our addition and subtraction strategies. These games also help us practice essential skills like cooperation, fair play, and winning and losing well. Plus, they're fun! We also got to find out what those socks were for. We were testing the properties of three materials to see which were the best insulators. Check out the simulation here: https://mysteryscience.com/materials/mystery-2/material-properties-classifying-materials/65?r=10638455&t=student

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Writers at Work!

This week we began a new writing project- descriptive writing about Fall. Many of us were eager to write about our Halloween costumes and plans. Others were excited to write about the fun they will have apple and pumpkin picking!

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Properties of Matter

I'm sure you saw those strange hats come home last week. Students worked to discover the definition of property (a way of describing an object) and those properties that make objects useful- like how a paper plate makes a great brim for a hat or a paper bag can be transformed into a neck covering. We will continue to explore the properties of matter in the coming weeks! See the lesson we learned here: https://mysteryscience.com/materials/mystery-1/material-properties-engineering/64?r=10638455&t=student

Fact Ninja Update

We've all earned our pink belts. We are masters of adding +0 facts!

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Math Practice

On Friday we played a round of "Sit, Solve, Stand". This activity gets us up and moving around the room AND practicing our problem solving skills. We solved ten different school-related word problems and rocked them!


Stand Tall, Molly Lou Melon Penny Engineering Challenge

Engineers at SMS

Our first Science lesson this year was based off of a fantastic picture book Stand Tall, Molly Lou Melon, about a little girl who is so confident in herself, she stands tall, even though she is no bigger than her dog! Molly Lou builds penny towers on her teeth, and so we built the tallest structures we could on our desks. Click through to see what we made. We did learn that building a tower is harder than it looks and takes a lot of patience and a steady hand. We worked hard today!


Math and Language Arts

Hard at Work!

We've been practicing many of the routines that we'll be using this year to become stronger readers, writers, and mathematicians. The pictures to the left (click play to see them all!) show us learning about our Working with Words materials- activities, games, and printables that will help us practice phonics and know-by-heart words. You can also see us using our math puzzles- one of our choices when we finish work early.


Mathematicians

What is a mathematician?

Students learned about what mathematicians do and that THEY are a mathematician. We then used our listening skills to create rockstar mathematicians and write about how we will grow in math this year!

School Item Challenge

School Time Challenge

We had an AWESOME first day today! Our last activity was a creative challenge. Students sculpted classroom items from Play-doh. Click through to see what we created!