September News

Our first month of school has quickly passed! We’ve been busy, busy, busy now that we are settled into our classroom routines. Here are a few highlights of our month. 

In Science, we spent time, both indoors and outdoors, with our 4th grade buddies in Mrs. Brown’s class working on the Square of Life Project. First, students gathered to discuss the project guidelines and meet “team” members.  Next, each group staked out a 1-meter square area where they expected to find many living and nonliving things. Then groups returned to trail to observe the squares. Slugs, termites, ants, salamanders, spiders and caterpillars were seen. Finally, we gathered as a group to combine findings and submit our data to the project site. Currently, we are waiting for other project members from around the country to add their data, so we can continue our work by comparing our squares with others in different geographic areas. 

Our Painted Ladies larvae arrived to our room at the beginning of the month, and the caterpillars quickly grew and formed their chrysalides. It was fascinating to observe each stage in their life cycle. The excitement was high as each butterfly emerged and we released it.

Our visit to The Butterfly Place last Friday was wonderful. After viewing a short video, we spent time in the garden where over 400 butterflies are living, along with a few quail and finches! Butterflies landed on our arms, shirts and pants. Outside the garden, there was a case which contained about 50 chrysalises. We also saw many types of larva.  Our day ended with lunch with our friends. Many thanks to Mrs. Hill, Mrs. King, Mrs. Hollister and Mrs. Morgado for chaperoning the trip.

In Math, along with developing our math routines, we’ve been practicing and testing our addition facts. We’ve also started counting mixed coins. Thank you for sending in coins for your child to use during this time. Other lessons involved skip counting, identifying odd and even numbers, and working with number grids. Our first unit test is on Monday. 

We had our first Skype of the year with Mrs. Saykaly’s second grade class in Jones Bridge, GA. Both classes took part in the Oreo Challenge 2014. The children shared the data we collected, and asked and answered questions about our school and state.  We loved learning about each other and have decided our classes will continue to connect with one another throughout the year.

Finally, last week the students took part in our first engineering challenge of the year. The purpose of these challenges is to take advantage of children`s natural curiosity and incorporate STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics) concepts into our classroom. Additionally, students develop creativity, collaboration, and problem solving-important 21st Century Skills. This month’s challenge was build an apple container that met certain criteria and constraints, in groups of 3 or 4 students. To be considered successful, the container had to: be easy to carry, have a handle, hold 3 or more apples, and be carried ten steps without apples falling to the floor. 

Initially, the children explored the properties of the materials available to use to build the container. Each child sketched multiple plans to share with members of their group. Each group then developed one plan together. On Thursday, teams had 45 minutes to build the container. All groups ran into problems at various stages of building and needed to work together to make adjustments to their plan. Some groups were quickly able to make changes to their plan when presented with a problem, while others chose not to veer from their original plan, even when the same problem persisted, until time was almost out. On Friday afternoon each group tested their container. If the container met the challenge, we continued to add apples until it fell apart. One group’s container held 10 apples! On Monday, we'll debrief, sharing important lessons learned, and identifying what they would do differently if given the opportunity to repeat the challenge. As a teacher, it’s exciting to watch how the children grow as thinkers and collaborators as we work on these challenges each month. 

Please take a few moments to enjoy the slideshow below! 

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