In our Bigger Backyard…WHAT’S ABOVE US?!
We asked ourselves…what are clouds and where does WIND come from?
We found out that the power of the sun and temperature has everything to do with how clouds and wind form. We revisited our knowledge about the 3 different states of water we learned about earlier in the year. We thought, again, about the water cycle and how water when heated transforms into vapor and moves upward it bonds together to form clouds. We conducted an experiment to see if we could make a cloud…and we did!
Often we love to look at the river of clouds that move across the sky above us and sometimes we see amazing things form…like cloud dragons or cloud rabbits, cloud ships or cloud cats…we went about making our own clouds…look up in the alpha classroom soon to see what’s floating there!
We then thought about heat and how it rises. Like when we make toast, if we put our hand above the toaster the heat is rising up. If we open a freezer that is very cold, the cold air moves down. It’s like that all over our world. Each day, the sun heats up the land or water and it moves up and as it moves up the cold air from higher in the atmosphere moves down and under the warm air and a current forms. The rotation of the earth moves the current and we have wind!
We made spirals to see how this works. Will the spirals move when heat rises?
They did!
We created “seed pods” to see how wind helps them to move and disperse…
…We discovered that wind is always changing the landscape and it also causes EXTREME weather like Haboobs, Tornados and Hurricanes…we looked at how these different kinds of storms form…
After all that talk about superstorms…we went searching for rainbows…
And because there are different kinds of rainbows, we made field guides
to help identify them!
In Math…
Ms. Kim’s Mathletes…
We played a game to explore the idea that there are many different combinations of quantities that can add up to the same number. Since we’re comfortable working with dimes and pennies, we started with the number 10. Why focus on combinations of ten? Because ten is a “friendly number — it’s easy to work with when adding. Once students understand how to make ten, they can use that knowledge to perform all kinds of mental math aerobics to add larger numbers!
Since our numbers were down this week, we got to play games with our 2nd-year buddies too!
Ms. Eliza’s Math Wizards…
This week, we continued to experiment and play with fractions. The pizza game is a great way to see how to break something that is whole into equal parts. We’re also getting lots of practice with double digit addition and subtraction this quarter.
In ELA…
Ms. Eliza’s Readers & Writers…
This quarter in our writer’s workshop, we’re writing about our lives. Some of us brought in our Memory Jars and shared them. After we share them we write about them. We read about the lives stuffed animals and dolls can have and are looking forward to meeting each other’s special stuffie, blanket or other comforting, special thing we love on Monday. We read Sophie’s Squash about a girl who discovers that a squash can make a delightful playmate! If you missed reading it with us this week, here’s a link to hear the story. Sophie’s Squash
a special writing stick memory stickers a piece of driftwood
We’re entering the world of digraphs and learned how two letters can blend together to make one sound. We started with s and h that make sh when they work together.
Ms. Kim’s Group…
This week’s spelling focus was on “r-controlled words.” Alphas are quite familiar with CVC and CVCe words’ short and long vowel sounds, but the letter “r” adds a new wrinkle to decoding our challenging English language. We focused on “ar” words this week and I promised to send a link to the spelling videos we watched in class – I’ve added last week’s too, as I forgot my promise from last week :)
We read a biography and several memoirs and discussed and wrote about their similarities and differences. We wrote a list of memories we had about events in our lives that meant something to us.
In Other News…
In STEAM this week we were challenged to design parachutes and seeds that could be carried by wind…Alphas had VERY inventive ideas and we had many successful floats from great heights (the ladder!)
“I finished sewing it this morning at breakfast!”
