Hello Spring!

Hi Everyone!
I hope you have been enjoying the beautiful weather. I have been busy snapping lots of pictures of all the great activities that we have done over the past week. Here's the update from room 5:

Social Studies: We just finished up the Rocky Mountain Region with our test on Friday. We will be moving on to the Southwest next. If you have any photos or information that you want to share with us, please drop me an email. We love visitors! As a wrap up to our Rocky Mountain studies, the students completed a jigsaw activity where they became "experts" on one part of the chapter. The "expert" groups were then mixed up and each member of the new group had to share information. The children made FANTASTIC posters to showcase their expertise!

The Expert Groups created posters...

Once the posters were completed, sharing info with their jigsaw groups...

Mathematics: We also wrapped up our study on geometry with some fun activities. We did a little human geometry...

A right angle

A right triangle

Reflection (A flip)

Rotation (A turn)

Parallel lines

Acute angle

Straight angle

We also made Molas for symmetry! Check out our colorful bulletin board!

We also used fun foam to practice flips, slides, and turns!

Our last project was to make symmetry pictures. The students were given 1/2 of a magazine photo and they needed to draw the "mirror image". The final products were spectacular! Take a look:

Hannah's parachute

Patrick's heart

Lauren's alien

Anthony's Dr. Phil M&M

Taylor's hungry girl

Meg's magic wand

Ashley's goldfish

Taylor's banana carrot

Rachel's brush

Katie's bird

Reading: We are working on our tall tale character projects to wrap up our unit. Each child has a different character to research. I will post some pictures soon. After vacation, we will begin our next unit on mystery!

Science: We will be wrapping up animals and starting plants after vacation.

Writing: I have been using our writing time to sneak in a bit of extra math. We are working on data and graphs. After vacation, we will be working on our presidents and first ladies projects. The children received their research at library today. They should read over this research during vacation. I would read these sources before going to internet resources. Please use kid friendly search engines such as yahooligans, if you decide to surf the net at home. Feel free to visit the public libraries or book stores to find additional information. The bulk of the project will be done at school, but the children will need to dress up in costume as their person for our annual Hall of Presidents & First Ladies in to be held early June. More info to come on this.

Read Aloud: We are preparing for our project on fractured fairy tales. We have been reading the original fairy tales and then, several fractured versions of the tale. For example, we read Cinderella. Next, we read CindyEllen, CinderEdna, Bubba the Cowboy Prince, Cinder-Elly, and an Egyptian Cinderella. We did the same with Rumplestiltskin and the Three Bears. After vacation, the children will receive an at-home writing project where they will need to construct their own fractured fairy tale. Complete project details will follow on this. You may wish to start thinking about which tale you want to fracture. Don't start the project yet...just think of ideas. Please ask your child to explain what a fractured fairy tale is to you and let me know if they have any questions.

I hope everyone has a great April vacation. I am going home to New York for a few days to see my parents and then I will be back in Northboro to visit with friends. I am also looking forward to taking Emma to see the Big Apple Circus in Boston too! This is our first visit to the circus with her. Hopefully, the clowns won't be too scary!

Be safe and have fun!

-JoAnne