Weekly Update 2/28/20

In math, we finished up our unit on counting coins. Students participated in a 3 Act Math challenge called It All Adds Up! to review what they learned. They watched a video that set up a mystery to be solved about what combination of coins went into a bank to equal $1.00. We discussed what we noticed and what we wondered after watching the video. After getting a few clues, students worked in partners to solve the mystery! Our next unit is on graphs and data. Students have already learned about tally charts and picture graphs.

Students listened to some wonderful read alouds this week to help them practice summarizing the big ideas of a fiction book. They were able to pick out story elements and think about the beginning middle, and end of the book to summarize.

In writing, we are nearing the end of our informational unit. Students finished up their 2nd drafts by revising with partners and using editing checklists. They are now publishing one of their two drafts to prepare for our writing celebration.

This week's science investigations were focused on finding materials that would be good to use for designing prototypes of penguin habitats. Students observed a variety of materials like felt, foil, bubble wrap, plastic wrap, and more to determine which had the properties of being insulators and which were transparent. We tested the materials under the heat lamp to record temperature changes. Then, students used this data to pick which materials they would include in their design sketches. Students completed individual sketches first. After that, they formed teams based on common material choices. They worked together to collaborate and create a revised team sketch that used the best of everyone's ideas. The students are excited to build their prototypes next week!