Week of February 9-13, 2009

Thursday 2/12/09

• Math 3: Today we discussed larger-smaller-difference problems, involving words like bigger, smaller, longer, shorter, hotter, colder, etc. Some students finished 86A in class, others did not. Homework: 86A and B.
• Language Arts 3: Today we took a quiz on "Potato Vacation," worked some more on our paragraphs for our book, and reviewed prepositions. Homework: Study for the spelling test!
• Language Arts 4: Today we held a literature circle discussion on "The Diary of Anne Frank." It was a very interesting story! Homework: Study for the spelling test!
• Religion 3/4:
• Social Studies 3/4: We spent some time in small groups practicing the Preamble as well as working on an activity comparing George Washington's USA to Abraham Lincoln's USA. It was strange to see a map of the USA with different markings on it, but very cool to see how things have changed since then.
• PE 3/4: Volleyball with Mr. Bretscher!

Wednesday 2/11/09

• Math 3: Today we discussed how many inches in a foot, how many feet in a yard, and how many centimeters in a meter. We estimated the length of our classroom in feet and yards then measured the actual length using a tape measure. What a crazy world this would be if everyone used his or her own foot for measuring! Good thing we have standardized units of measure now! We also learned how to use a clock to help us with multiplying by 5, how to multiply by 0, and the commutative property of multiplication. Homework: 85A and finish 85B.
• Language Arts 3: Our story for the day was called "Potato Vacation" and we learned a great deal about life for potato farmers living in Maine from the point of view of a young girl named Peggy. We talked about fact versus opinion and looked for examples of opinions in the story. Homework: Spelling sentences.
• Language Arts 4: We were unable to have our literature circle today due to an absence so those who were prepared were able to spend some time practicing their spelling words using a fun website called http://www.spellingcity.com/. Those who weren't prepared for the literature circle finished their work and also completed a self-evaluation from the last literature circle discussion. Homework: Spelling sentences.
• Science 3/4: We discussed Sir Isaac Newton and his three laws of motion this afternoon. The first and most well-known is the Law of Inertia which tells us that an object in motion or at rest will STAY in motion or at rest unless another force acts upon it. This means that when we throw a baseball, the ball will continue to move forward in the air until another force (gravity) acts upon it, bringing it down.
• Scholastic News 3/4: Our Scholastic News for today was celebrating Abraham Lincoln's 200th birthday. We discussed many reasons why Lincoln is said to be the greatest president of all time, and we learned that the U.S. Mint is releasing four new pennies in his honor. Following our discussion of the news stories we read the Gettysburg Address and talked about what it meant.

Tuesday 2/10/09

• Math 3: This morning we learned a poem to help us remember how many days are in each month of the year: "Thirty days hath September, April, June, and November. All the rest have thirty-one, except February, with twenty-eight days clear, and twenty-nine in each leap year." Everyone finished 84A in class. Homework: 84B and oral facts 84.
• Language Arts 3: Today third graders did a fun activity to help build our sentence writing skills. Eventually we will have written a book about ourselves but for now we are working on writing strong paragraphs that focus on a central theme. Homework: Spelling words written 3x.
• Language Arts 4: Fourth graders read an excerpt from "The Diary of Anne Frank," which is set in Germany during WWII, like our last story, "The Cage." Students looked for similarities between this and other survival stories we've read and used their dictionaries to identify new vocabulary words. Homework: Finish answering the questions from class, and spelling words written 3x.
• Religion 3/4: We had Bible races today and also talked about sins of omission as opposed to sins of comission.
• Social Studies 3/4: In our continuing mini-unit on President's Day we read a fascinating story about Abe Lincoln's journey to Washington D.C. and the things he fought for and accomplished during his work in office. Many sad things happened to Lincoln but still he fought hard to save the Union and keep everyone free.
• PE 3/4: We got to have PE outside today with Mr. Bretscher!

Monday 2/9/09

• Math 3: We learned about the Celsius scale on the thermometer and how to write temperature in Celsius. We learned that the freezing and boiling points for water are 0 and 100 on the Celsius scale, and that a Celsius thermometer shows increments of one while the Fahrenheit thermometer usually shows increments of two. Everyone finished 83A in class. Homework: 83B.
• Language Arts 3: We read a Patricia Polacco story called "Just Plain Fancy" that gave us more insight into the Amish community and also taught us a lesson on the beauty of God's creation. Homework: Spelling words in ABC order.
• Language Arts 4: Today we held a literature circle discussion on "The Cage." It was interesting when we talked about what things we NEED to survive - are friends something you need to survive? Homework: Spelling words in ABC order.
• Religion 3/4: Homework: 126-127 in religion book.
• Music 3/4: We reviewed playing the notes G, A, B, C, and D. Most of us are working on learning the song "Aura Lee" but a few students have learned the note E and habe begun working on the song "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star." Students have been informed that if recorders go home this week they are to be practicing their song and nothing else. By Friday I'm hoping everyone can play Aura Lee so that we can move on to more challenging pieces with more notes.
• Science 3/4: Continuing our physics unit we discussed forces today. We talked about force, friction, gravity, work, and power. We talked about what kind of things make our work easier and what kind of things have more power, and we also talked about the effect of gravity on every object. We tested a theory by dropping a tennis ball and a baseball at the same time. Before dropping them we predicted which ball would hit first. As it turned out, the tennis ball and baseball both hit the ground at the same time, everytime!