We are almost at the finish line for another great year of school! Here is the video from the 4th grader's final engineering challenge from a couple of weeks ago. Enjoy!
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Busy week last week in our classroom. It was officially engineering week in the country. We certainly had fun doing plenty of engineering! The 5th grade math class got to go on a field trip to IBM in Boulder to participate in their activities. We also got a tour of the command center. It was a great chance to see what types of jobs engineers do in the real world. On Friday back at Werner, we had our third engineering challenge in class. The fourth graders worked on building a moon rover that could roll the farthest. The fifth graders engineered a core sampler that could burrow into the surface of a planet (really food items) to take a piece of the alien surface for testing. Lots of great teamwork and fun!
Last week was our second engineering challenge of the year. Below are the videos of the kids' hard work. Fourth graders were trying to build shock-absorbing systems for their astronauts to land on the moon. Fifth graders were working on designs for robotic arms for space exploration. If you want to check out the individual pictures, check out the photos page of the website. http://traceybean.weebly.com/photos.html Friday was our first engineering challenges in 4th and 5th grade math. Fourth graders were attempting to reach the moon with their straw rockets. Fifth graders were trying to use airbag systems to land rovers (eggs) on distant planets for exploration. Check out all of the pictures on the photos page of the website or take a peek at our the videos below which include the videos of the final experiements at the end. What great creativity and fabulous failures and wonderful teamwork we experienced! We finished up our engineering challenges for the year last week. Below you will see the videos that I created from their hard work. If you check the photos page, you can also see all the individual pictures posted there. Enjoy! Somehow the weeks have gotten away from me with the build up to Spring Break, and I haven't taken the time to sit down and blog lately. I was also having technical difficulties with my IPad so it took me extra long to make the videos from our last engineering challenge. At last, here is an update from me and the videos of our fun from the end of February. Check out the photos page for all the pictures from these videos too! And here are quick updates on topics each class is studying right now...
5th Grade Math - We have just finished a challenging unit on division of fractions. We will be doing some geometry work for the next week by studying volume and reviewing types of angles, triangles, and quadrilaterals. 4th Grade Math - These students have just completed a unit on decimal concepts and we are in the middle of a quick unit on addition and subtraction of decimals. By the end of next week, fourth graders will be doing a pre-algebra unit on finding patterns in math and graphing them to look for relationships. 3rd Grade Math - Third graders will finish a unit this week on fractions. We have specifically been studying how to find equivalent fractions and ways to compare fractions. Our next unit will cover multiplication concepts again but this time extending their understanding to multiple digits (problems like 30 X 40, 500 X 60, and more.) 5th Grade Language Arts - The fifth graders just did an awesome job of sharing their research projects. They have learned to do research, take notes, write a research essay, cite sources, and create a bibliography. They then got to determine a fun project to present their learning. We watched videos, speeches, performances, art gallery presentations, and more. Fun to see their areas of passion come alive! Next week, we will begin a novel study and be learning about Socratic Seminars. 4th Grade Language Arts - Fourth grade students have two mores weeks with me doing their current novel studies. We have continued our work learning the Greek/Latin roots of the English language and meeting weekly to discuss their books of choice. 3rd Grade Language Arts - We will begin again in a few weeks after PARCC testing is completed. First up this week, a quick rundown of what each class is up to these days... 5th Grade Math - We are finishing up a unit on addition and subtraction of fractions (test on Monday) before we move onto multiplication of fractions next week. 4th Grade Math - This class has also spent time on fractions and has just finished a unit on adding and subtracting fractions with like denominators and now we are adding and subtracting with different denominators. 3rd Grade Math - These students are working on an addition and subtraction unit which is mostly review for the students of carrying and regrouping. We'll quickly be moving on to fractions before Spring Break after this review. 5th Grade Language Arts - In this class, the students are working on their Peak Projects. Each child has chosen their topic and completed their research. Their essay outline is due next Thursday with the rough draft due the following Thursday 3/1. 3rd Grade Language Arts - We are already a week into our latest book study of realistic fiction books about school by Andrew Clements. Literature Circle meetings are on Thursdays where students lead a discussion about their assigned reading for the week. In addition to academic learning this week, I met with all of the grade level gifted students to touch base on their affective goals from their ALP for the year. 5th graders' goals are based on healthy risk taking. We read stories of famous mistakes that turned out to be a success (ask them about the stories behind popsicles, hot dogs, or sticky notes.) 4th graders' goals are based on study skills and organization. We discussed test taking strategies. We also had some fun coming up with test taking tip posters that we can post during PARCC testing in April (they were super creative with slogans with where they "played" with the work PARCC vs. park.) I'll hang up their motivational posters in March when we head into testing season. I also met with 3rd graders to discuss their peer relationship goals and do a fun activity to work on team building. In groups of three, students had to work together with limited materials to get a treat off the wall with their creative device. Below are a few pictures I took of the 3rd grade challenge and the 4th grade poster making. 3rd Grade Peer Relationships Challenge4th Grade Motivational PostersIf your child is in Knowledge Peak for math, last week you should have received an email from SignUp Genius to consider volunteering for our next Engineering Challenge days coming up in February. On Thursday, February 23, and Friday, February 24, during regular math classes, students will be doing their third STEM day in my class. Please consider coming and helping and joining in on the fun! If you did not get the email, here is the link for signing up: http://www.signupgenius.com/go/20f0c4fa4ae2ea6fd0-stem This week I'll take a bit of your time to share the projects that my two current language arts groups are working on. For the month of January, I have 4th graders for language arts/creativity. We are focusing on reading nonfiction. We kicked off this topic by exploring the types of text structures (compare/contrast, cause/effect, sequential, etc.) of nonfiction books and the text features (pictures with captions, sidebars, index, graphs/maps/charts, etc.) that make nonfiction different than fiction books. Each student has a biography of a famous Colorado history figure. They will be reading their book and creating a list of facts about their person in the form of ABC's. They also have choice in one more project to share what they learned about their person either in writing journal entries as their figure, choosing objects to represent their person, or creating a cartoon of a major event from their life. The documents they are working on as they read are below if you are curious. All of their work for this biography project is due February 1 so please check in with your 4th grader and make sure they are on target to finish by that time. We'll be working all this week in class too. Fifth grade language arts/creativity students are also focusing their work with me on reading nonfiction. Their project is much larger and long-term though. Each student is choosing a topic of their choice to study as part of their Peak Project. They will be writing a five-paragraph essay on their topic and completing a project to share their learning with the class. The objectives with this project are many: learn to manage time for a project & meet deadlines, find resources (books and internet) and learn to take notes and cite sources appropriately, speak in front of the class, become an expert on a topic, and much more. Final essays are due before Spring Break and projects for sharing right after Spring Break. Our focus lately has been on how to choose a topic, narrow it down to the important subtopics and questions for researching. We'll officially start the research next week. Please periodically between now and March 8, check in with your child to see how their project is going. Below are some of the important documents that students will be using to help guide their work: As we start a new year, many people have getting organized as one of their goals for the year ahead. If you are trying to help make sure you start the year on the right foot with helping your student get organized for the new year, let me remind you what you should expect for homework if your child is in my math class. 3rd Grade Math Homework - Homework will come home nightly Monday through Thursday. It is due back the very next day. Third graders also get a "Pink Practice" on Mondays that is due on Fridays. This is always basic multiplciation/division fact practice. I require that third graders have a homework folder when they walk into class. They should be bringing that two-pocket folder back and forth to class and back and forth to home. Please take a moment to clean it out with them at least weekly since they bring home their corrected work in this too. 4th Grade Math Homework - Just like 3rd grade, these students will get homework Monday through Thursday nights and it is due the following morning. They also have "Pink Practice" that they will get on Monday and it is due on Friday which will help them review their basic facts. 5th Grade Math Homework - Fifth graders have nightly homework Monday through Thursday that is due the following day. For all of my classes, each night's homework is worth 5 points if they did it to the best of their ability with a pencil, put their name on it, and check it thoroughly with us in class the following day (see the document attached below for a breakdown of the points.) Each week's homework is worth a total of 20 points so if you look in the gradebook, you will note the week number and a score out of 20 points for your child each week. Missing points usually mean that they did not have it completed. When students do not have it done, they have to sit in the hall for the beginning of class and finish (then turn it into me for grading.) My biggest concern with late work is that they miss the valuable review that the other students get when we go over the answers before we begin a new topic for that day. How can you know what the homework is each night? If you have a 4th or 5th grader, they have a planner that should have their homework written down. I try to check with every student before they leave each day to make sure they have written in their planner. You can also access my online planbook which allows you to see the homework tab. Check out this link: https://planbook.com/planbook.html?t=974564&k=20162017 What topics should you expect for homework right now for math?
3rd grade Math - We have just finished a unit on determining area of rectangles. Our next unit covers data collection, specifically scaled bar graphs and picture graphs. 4th grade Math - These will be taking a test on Thursday on our unit covering factors/multiples and prime/composite numbers. We'll be heading into a few units on fractions very soon. 5th grade Math - We will complete our long-division review unit this week. Our next topic will be operations with decimals (adding, subtracting, multiplying, and dividing,) as well as solving algebra equations dealing with decimals. Holiday break has arrived! I hope you have a fabulous time enjoying your family and friends and hopefully some relaxing. For the last post of 2016, I will provide you with the videos from our second engineering challenge. Third graders will be showing you how to build an effective parachute for astronaut safety. Fourth graders will display how to create shock-absorbing systems for moon landers. And finally fifth graders will be demonstrating robotic arms that might be useful for remote exploration of distant planets. All pictures are also on the Photos page of the website if you click here. Enjoy! |
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