Weekly Update

Research Workshop
Students worked on their country reports in their final draft booklets this week.  They learned how to write meaningful captions and draw illustrations which match each of their paragraphs.  They spent time copying each of their rough draft paragraphs into final drafts.  Students also learned how to write a bibliography in order to give the author's credit for the research they did.  We are so proud of how the students are taking their time to transfer all of their hard work into their final booklets!  The students can't wait to share their final products with you!

Math Workshop
This week students continued to practice adding three-digit numbers.  They also learned how to subtract across three-digit numbers.  We taught three different methods for subtraction as seen below.

Next, we practiced subtracting across zeros (i.e. 500-239).  Students do not necessarily need to show their work with a proof drawing every time if they don't feel the need to; however, students must show their "ungroupings."  Take a close look at the work that is done in the magnifying glass in the picture below.  The number that has been crossed out and the new hundreds, tens, and ones written above is an example of showing "ungroupings."

We ended the week learning two subtraction methods using place value drawings--ungrouping from the left and ungrouping from the right.

Science

This week we compared the mass of our dry lima beans to the mass of lima beans which had been soaked in water for a day.  Students also opened up the soaked lima bean to check out the inside of the seed and look more closely at the embryo.  We learned about the different stages of a seed's life as well.  Students learned the following new vocabulary words: root, seed coat, stem, leaves, cotyledon.  We discussed that early growth is called germination.  Each student also chose a bean seed with roots from either his/her minisprouter or the class sprouter to plant in our hydro-grower.  Our bean seeds are now floating in water mixed with plant nutrients and sitting in the windowsill for some sunshine.  We hope to have some luck with the hydroponic method of growing plants!  Stay tuned!

All-Star of the Week

Zain was our All-Star this week!  He enjoyed a special lunch with his dad on Thursday.  The class loved listening to his read-aloud, Bugs that Go Bump in the Night, and his parent letter.  We also enjoyed Zain's items from his sharing sack!  Zain is a good friend and students wrote many nice things to him for his compliment book on Friday.