It's been another great week! Even though cold temperatures have kept us mostly indoors, we still found ways to learn and have fun. We've started our second round of letters and sounds, and the students are doing an exceptional job putting their skills into practice. We've also been exploring teen numbers in math, and have been using lots of hands-on projects to demonstrate our learning. Finally, the students have shown a great interest in the properties of snow during Genius Hour. We've been conducting snow experiments, and learning about where snow fits in the water cycle. We have a group of little scientists this year, and it's incredible to watch them learn! Students had the opportunity to do some hands-on letter practice this week using Wiki-Sticks, a fun flexible learning tool similar to a sticky pipe cleaner. We reviewed the letters A, M, and N and practiced letter formation, beginning sounds, and blending CVC words. Here, students can be seen building an uppercase M! In addition to teen numbers, we also did a bit more review of 2D shapes in math. Here, students can be seen going for a 'shape walk,' recording shapes they found in our classroom on their clipboards. In this picture, these students were discussing how the crayons had a rectangle bottom, a triangle top, and an oval center. Later in the week, we explored how teen numbers can be made using a ten and some more ones (i.e., 13 can be made using a 10 and 3 ones). To show this, we made paper chains! Students chose a color of paper, then made a paper chain 10 loops long. After that, they got to choose a teen number and add the additional loops in another color. When finished, they show our teen numbers as a ten and some more ones. In addition to the teen number skills, students were practicing fine motor skills, counting, and problem solving (there was some difficulty figuring out how to attach the loops to one another, but they persevered!). These will be hung up in the hallways so students can be reminded of their teen numbers as well as their hard work. Last week, the students brainstormed a lot of great questions they'd like to explore during Genius Hour. This week, we chose the question 'Where does snow come from?'. The students noticed that the snow was disappearing, so we decided to start exploring this question by first figuring out what was happening to the snow. We conducted an experiment where we brought in two cups of snow and added salt to one. Then, we observed to see what would happen. In this picture, you can see that the snow in both cups has melted. However, the students observed that the snow with salt melted faster than the snow without. When we returned to school two days later (thanks, snow day!), the students discovered something amazing - not only had the snow disappeared completely, but there was a strange substance left in one of the cups! The students first hypothesis was that it was ice, but after a bit more exploring, they realized it was salt. We passed around both cups to give everyone a chance to observe and discover, and the conversation was just incredible. They discussed what the strange substance could be, how it got there, and why the other cup was completely empty. After everyone had a chance to see the cups, we brainstormed a whole new list of questions. Most of these questions revolved around temperature - the students are starting to realize that the snow only seems to stick around when it's cold, which should prompt some really fun experiments in the weeks to come. One student even proposed an answer to our original question - maybe snow comes from the North Pole! After much hypothesizing, we finally began to find some answers. We learned about the water cycle, how water can change forms, and how it eventually comes back down to earth. It took some thinking, but the students eventually figured out how snow fit into our water cycle - when the clouds get cold enough, we get snow instead of rain! Even though we spent most of our week indoors (and probably will this week, too!), the students still found lots of ways to have fun. Stay warm, Wolfpack!
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May 2024
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