Monday, January 30. We learned about the difference between mass and weight today. We are using the 2 pan balances to figure out the mass of various objects. Nearly everyone is done with their fossil report rough draft. Hoorah. We worked this afternoon on our first Shape Shifter lesson. We learned about Bloomington Stoneware, the fountain in the front of the Showers Building. The sculptor, Brad J. Goldberg, used concepts from our town’s history to shape his sculpture. We used playdough to re-create the sculpture. Now we are reflecting on what we’ve learned.
Tuesday, January 31. Today was a busy day. We worked on learning how to measure to the ¼ inch. We measured our pencils and then gathered our data onto a line plot. We also continued to work on measuring mass with grams and kilograms. In the afternoon, we worked on our various writing projects. Then we read a non-fiction book, Children of the Indian Boarding Schools, that gave us background on the Indian Boarding Schools that were featured in our fiction book about Thomas Blue Eagle. We made bumper stickers about these books. At the end of the day we had time to discuss the most important article in a TFK issue.
Wednesday, February 1. Happy Month of LOVE! We started our day by solving our Problem of the Day together. The 3rdLanders have made so much progress with their problem solving skills. Hoorah! Then we kicked off African American History Month with a fantastic African American READ IN. #AARI started in 1990 to bring literacy in African American History Month. We focused on reading books that have earned the Coretta Scott King Award. We learned about writing book quotes for the books we read, after a lesson on using quotation marks. During PAWS time, we practiced our words to get ready for Friday’s test and finished some writing projects. We ended the day with some quiet writing in our notebooks. What a dreamy Writer’s Wednesday!
Thursday, February 2. Today we worked on division concepts. We connected division facts to corresponding multiplication facts. We learned about the life of Aesop and read some of his fables. We’ll use Aesop’s fables to learn more about identifying themes in fictional texts. We worked on multi-meaning words, homophones and suffixes during PAWS time. We read about the highlights of 2022 in our Time for Kids at the end of the day.