The first week of February 2014

"Away in a meadow all covered with snow
The little old groundhog looks for his shadow
The clouds in the sky determine our fate
If winter will leave us all early or late."
-  Don Halley

Language Arts

                                          

After reading the following two folktales, The Seven Chinese Brothers and Anansi The Spider, the students used a Venn diagram to compare and contrast the two stories.  Then students wrote a paragraph comparing the author's message along with examples of how the two stories were alike and different.  This week students will read, Anansi Does The Impossible, and then watch the movie, "How Anansi Obtained the Sky God's Stories." Students will discuss the similarities and differences between these two types of media. Then students will determine which they liked better. 

                                          

                                      

Following this, students will read, Why Mosquitoes Buzz in People's Ears and determine what caused this to happen.

 

                                   
                                          
                                  


Here is a You Tube video explaining the story:

Mathematics

 
Students are learning about the attributes of triangles and quadrilaterals in math.  



Students created triangles with straws and discussed all triangles have three sides, three vertices and three angles. Students learned the term "vertex." Then they discovered the area inside the triangle where two sides meet is called an angle.  Students made triangles of different lengths and learned that one type of triangle is called a right triangle. Then students discussed the attributes of polygons in order to determine the difference between shapes that are and are not triangles.

Students are learning the properties of quadrilaterals and the difference between squares,  and rectangles. They first will create these shapes with straws. Then students will discuss the attributes of a quadrilateral, which means the shape has four sides, four angles, and four vertices. The students will notice that squares and rectangles have right angles. Students will compare and contrast the difference in these two shapes.




                                          


                                                  
                                                  

                                      
    




The great minds of the students in this class are working hard to learn concepts and are delving deep into concepts being presented in class.