Good afternoon!
What a fun, math filled day here in Classroom 5N. We started our morning off by reviewing volume. Students have been working on practicing problems that have them calculating the volume of objects using cubic centimeters. While we have explored the cubic meter, today we began to practice some of these questions. Students worked in their Math groups to practice their textbook and workbook questions. The “Teacher Station” was also open today. Students reviewed their homework with me, and then they were each asked to construct a rectangular prism using centimeter cubes. Students then had to be able to tell me the dimensions and volume of their prism. Finally, we did have two other stations today. We had “Explore” open. In “Explore” students begin to look ahead at concepts that we will be studying. Today students began to explore capacity. They were provided with a variety of materials (measuring cups, buckets, jars, graduated cylinders, pattern blocks) and asked to start exploring the relationship between milliliters and liters using the materials. We also had the “I-Pad Center” open today. Students were using their Mathletics accounts to further develop and practice their skills.
Today we started Chapter 4 of “Bridge to Terabithia”. I have really enjoyed reading this book so far. Right now we work on our Novel Study every Wednesday. Students read a chapter, and we generally have accompanying activities and lessons. For Chapters 1-2 we of course did our Classroom Dress-up, 1970’s themed day. We also had students complete a Journal Entry about the novel so far. They were asked: “Running and drawing are both private and important interests to Jess. Write about an activity that you are passionate about that others may or may not know you like. Explain why it is important to you. How do you feel when you are doing it?” Students also worked to complete 1970’s themed paper dolls and we also created a “Top 10 List” for the qualities we would like to have in friend. For Chapter 3 students looked at creating Character Webs for both Jesse and Leslie. Students were asked to tell us about how each character acts, looks, feels, and what they say. We also started to look closely at some of the similes and metaphors used in the book, and practiced creating some of our own. This actually led to an extension activity that students who were present on Friday worked on. We read Maya Angelou’s “Still I Rise” and were challenged to find the similes and metaphors in the poem. Today we began looking at Chapter 4. We are going to be discussing some related concepts in the films “Wizard of Oz” and “The Neverending Story” and talk about the creation of Terabithia. We will also be completing our second journal entry on this chapter. Stay tuned for updates!
This afternoon we also started looking at capacity as a class. We discussed the relationship between milliliters and liters. We also gave students some referents to use when looking at these units. A liter is about 4 cups of something, while a milliliter is about 1 eyedropper full of water. I also like to think of a milliliter as being how much water a centimeter cube could hold. When you compare the two referents, it becomes much easier to understand why it takes 1000 milliliters to get 1 liter. We completed some activities together as a class, and will be practicing these concepts during our Math Groups tomorrow.
Agenda:
Read 20 minutes
Reading Journal – Friday
Book Orders – April 30th
Mathletics Meet-up – TONIGHT @ 5:30 pm and 7:00 pm
Math: pg. 147 #1-4
Unit Test – Friday
Science: Switch Project (April 25th)
Multicultural Potluck – April 23rd
Health – Girls Inc. Forms
Talent Show – tomorrow @ 8:30 am