Stay tuned for next week's update on our 2nd Space STEM Challenge. Math students will be participating on Thursday and Friday, February 18 & 19, in our next engineering build-off. Thanks to those of you who have already offered to volunteer. I could still use a couple of 4th grade parents if you have a little time to volunteer: http://www.signupgenius.com/go/20f0c4fa4ae2ea6fd0-stem_ Last week, the fifth grade students and I took advantage of our technology and participated in a Mystery Skype on Friday. With a Mystery Skype, the two classes don't know where each other are, and basically play a game of 20 questions using their geography skills to determine the other class' location. Turned out our partner class was from Charlotte, North Carolina - home of the Carolina Panthers! My friend Whitney Godfrey teaches 5th grade science at River Gate Elementary there. We organized the Skype in honor of our Super Bowl teams. Mrs. Godfrey and I had a couple of challenges then related to the big game: First, the winning state's class would receive handmade homework passes from the losing state's class (to be used for one assignment in the future.) Second, we did a coin drive just for this last week. We'll pool the money tomorrow and all the funds will go to the winning quarterback's foundation. Since that was the Broncos (YEAH!!) the winning Foundation is Manning's Peyback Foundation. Here are a couple of pictures from our end as we were Skyping... Fourth grade math students have begun a new unit this week on fractions. We'll be exploring equivalent fractions, comparing fractions, adding & subtracting fractions, and multiplying fractions by a whole number. This unit will lead into the next study which will be converting decimals, fractions, and percents. As part of our kick off today, we had some fun exploring fractions with pattern blocks and changing the whole to see how that changes the value of the shapes. Check out these engaged learners as they draw and learn... Not to be left out, third grade Knowledge Peak students all came down to meet with me on Tuesday for their affective goal review. Since their goals this year are all related to better peer relationships and learning how to work cooperatively, I gave them a challenge. Each group of three got 10 sheets of newspaper, five paperclips, a cup, and masking tape. There were fruit snacks taped on the wall and they had to figure out how to work as a group to devise a way to get the fruit snacks off the wall before they could eat them. It turned out to be a harder challenge than they thought (and we had such a limited time, unfortunately) but thanks to some great time reflecting on their group dynamics, everyone was a winner as they turned in their reflections this week. Again here are some pictures of your children having some fun! For more pictures from each of these, check out the photos page of the website:
http://traceybean.weebly.com/photos.html
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Tracey BeanWerner Elementary Archives
May 2018
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