Week 27

March 14, 2020

LITERACY

MARCH MADNESS: TOURNAMENT OF BOOKS

Our second week of March Madness has been a blast. Thank you to all of our Mystery Readers for taking time to read to 3D! The students love trying to guess who their Mystery Reader will be each day based on the clues they receive each morning.

The four books that were read this week are Memoirs of a Goldfish, Miss Raffety's Rainbow Socks, School Rules! and Wild Boars Cook.

The students have voted and the two books moving on to the Elite Eight are Memoirs of a Goldfish and Miss Raffety's Rainbow Socks!

Book Study:
Earlier this week, I read the books "How to Catch a Leprechaun" by Adam Wallace and "The Gingerbread Man and the Leprechaun Loose At School" by Laura Murray.

These books provided students with descriptive vocabulary for their upcoming writing project and introduced them to their study of homophones. The students defined homophones as words that sound the same but have different meanings and spellings. Can you believe we have over 7000 homophones in the English language!

Once the students familiarized themselves with homophones, the planning began for our HOW TO CATCH A LEPRECHAUN writing project. The students started out with thinking of possible things they could use to lure a leprechaun. Next, they provided me with ideas for possible traps they could build. In their drafts it was important to introduce the students to Red Flag Words which would build suspense in their writing.

At the end of the week, students learned how to draw a leprechaun so they can accurately portray him in an illustration of a scene from their final draft.

Reading:

Congratulations to this student for reaching the next pit stop by reading a total of 2400 minutes!

Congratulations to this student for reaching the next reading pit stop. She is so close to making around the world for the third time, one more pit stop to go!

Congratulations to this student for reaching the making around the world for the third time and reaching the next pit stop by reading a over 6000 minutes!

SOCIAL STUDIES

Postcards from Tunisia

On Thursday, the students completed their Tunisia unit by taking part in Tunisia Day. They had several activities set up for them: straw weaving, mosaic art and Tunisian food tasting. I think they had a lot of fun!

Green= Good / Yellow=So So / Red=Not a Fan

SCIENCE

This week, the class began their new Science unit: Building. This unit the students will focus on building with a variety of materials and testing materials and designs. To start thinking like engineers, I read the book "Rosie Revere Engineer" by Andrea Beaty to the class.

The building activities are themed Survivor style. The students are put into tribes and each day they are faced with a new building challenges where they must use various materials and test their designs and materials to accomplish a common goal. Our four tribes are: the Grey Foxes, Devon Dragons, Pirate Pod and The Splatters.

Challenge 1 the tribes were received a different set of materials that they were to use to write down a list of materials in a given time. The tribes quickly realized that not everyone got the same thing and were getting frustrated. They determined the task was not a fair test. The students learned that a fair test is important when carrying out Science experiments and building procedures.

Challenge 2 the students were presented a dilemma on their island. The students were asked to build something to cross a dangerous hole in the ground that would be able to sustain all of their weight. The question they were challenged with was whether a square shape or a arch shape would hold the most mass. They used index cards, plasticine, plate and cubes to demonstrate their learning. They learned that the arch shape could support the most mass. They realized that most bridges are built with an arch shape, too!