Birthday Boy!

Yesterday, Jake turned 9 years old.  We would like to thank him for sharing ice cream and cookies with us.  Happy Birthday, Jake!

Working with First Graders

Today the students worked with Ms. Marzouki's class.  Our classes are working on writing letters to local businesses to ask for their help in supplying our Makerspace with supplies and materials for students to use.  This will be a room that will allow students to create, design and innovate.  I will share some of these letters as they finish them.  It was great to see the third graders asking their first grade partners for advice on what to add to their letters.  Some third graders even gave up their seats, so their partner could sit down.

Coding

I added a link to this post for you to read.  It's about the importance of teaching computer science in our schools.  I feel strongly about this topic and encourage all parents to share their support to this cause.

Letter to Congress

Pencil Line Plot

Towards the end of math class today the students were asked to solve a problem about different lengths of pencils.  The table below was created by Julian and Josephe.  Most groups are on the last part of this problem.  The students were asked to create their line plot on graph paper.

Below are the following the measurements of different sized pencils.  Make a line plot for these measurements.  Measure one of your pencils and add it to the line plot.

3 ¼ 4 ½   5 6 ¼ 4 ½ 3 ¼ 3 ¼ 5 ¾ 4 ¾ 3 ¾

Length	Total
3 ¼	3
3 ¾	1
4 ½	2
4 ¾	1
5	1
5 ¾	1
6 ¼	1
7	1
7 ¼	1
Total in all	12

After making your line plot, draw each pencil accurately to its correct size.

Do you think these pencils come from a classroom at the beginning of the school year, middle of the school year, or the end of the school year. Explain your thinking.

Bats in My Attic

The students are reading a book titled, "Bats in the Attic".  It's the last book of a series of three books that the students have read this school year.  Each book is about a boy who is visiting his Gram for the summer.  His Gram lives by the ocean.  He has a lot of adventures in these books and learns quite a bit about nature at the same time.  While reading this books students are working with partners and completing various tasks.  Below are three of the tasks that Maddie and Elexus have completed.

Maddie   

a.          I think the author’s purpose is to entertain because there is story elements and that means the book is fiction.  The characters are Gram, Jim and the boy.  Some of the settings are the attic, outside, library and beach.  The plot is he wants to figure out why there is bats in his attic..  The problem is there is bats in his attic.  His solution is he goes to the library and finds books to tell him why the bats are in his attic, he found a book that told him that the bats were finding insects in his attic.

b.

   BATS

• A bat can eat 600 to 1,000 mosquito sized bugs in an hour
• Bats are related to humans
• Their skin is so thin that you can almost see through it
• Bats are split into two categories Megabats and Microbats
• Bats wings have four fingers   

Bats are disgusting mammals.

Bats are small.

Bats are way to slow.

c.       

   

SETTING	Beach, gram’s house, outside attic and library
TIME	summer, present
PLACE	In gram’s house
ENVIRONMENT	Clams, waves, sun

d.

            

Elexus

The authors purpose is to entertain and inform.  Entertain means to have story elements.  The characters are the Boy, Gram and Jim.  The setting is at the beach, the library and the house.  The problem is the boy heard strange noises. The solution is the boy went the library.

− Bats are not blind

− Bats

−

−

−

Great Lakes Math

Below is a group of math problems that I asked the students to solve this morning.  The completed work for these math problems were completed by Allison.

1. Put the five great lakes in order from the most shallow to the deepest lake.

Lake Erie, Lake Huron, Lake Ontario, Lake Michigan and then Lake Superior.

          

2. How many feet deeper is Lake Superior than each of the other great lakes?

     

Great Lakes	How much more is                lake superior
Lake heron	583 more
Lake michigan	410 more
Lake erie	1,123 more
Lake orlando	531 more

   

3. If you put the depths of Lake Michigan and Lake Erie together would they be deeper than Lake Superior?

           No it is not

4. How much does the elevation go down from Lake Superior to the end of the Niagara Falls?

   358

5.  Write a multiplication number sentence and an addition number sentence showing the amount of fish shown above.

3x2= 6

2+2+2= 6

6.  If only ⅓ of the total fish are shown above, how many fish are in all?

18 fish

7.  If 2/6 of the fish are rainbow trout, how many rainbow trout are there in all?

Six fish

8. Joey, Austin, and Sophia went fishing with their parents.  During the day Joey caught 2/8 of all the fish caught.  Austin caught 2/6 of all the fish caught and Sophia caught ⅖ of all the fish caught during the day.  

Who caught the most fish out of the three?  

Sophia caught the most because the numerators are all the same so you go down to the denominators and the smallest denominator the larger so sophia.

Who caught the least fish?

Joey caught the  least because all of the numerators are the same so you see the least denominator and you pick that because heights are smaller than the author fractions and you can look at fraction tiles

 9.  Caulden caught 5 lake trout, 3 salmon, and 4 carp.  Joel caught 3 lake trout, 2 salmon, and 3 carp.  Maddie caught 6 lake trout, 3 salmon, and 3 carp.  

Make a line plot for the amount of each type of fish caught by these three students.  

Create a bar graph

 pictograph for this data too.  

Write three things you learn from your graph.

Plant Observations

Last Thursday, each student planted Wisconsin Fast Plant seeds.  Today, the students were surprised to see that they had already sprouted.  At the start of the science the students measure and observed their plants.  They were asked to take descriptive notes.  The students will be measuring and recording their observations for their plants every couple of days.  Again, this is part of our science unit on Life Cycles.

Sheboygan Historical Museum Field Trip

Today the students spent their day at our local historical museum.  They learned about how communities start out and grow over time.  The focus was on learning about the communities in Sheboygan County.  Throughout the day the students learned about different occupations and trades that people had in the 1800's.  They learned about blacksmiths, wheelwrights, coopers, etc.  By the end of the day, most students realized the importance of people working together in order to make a community stronger.  For example, the students learned that the blacksmith relies on the cooper and the cooper relies on the farmer and so on.  It was a fun way to learn more about our local history.

Plant Life Cycle

Yesterday, we started a science unit on life cycles.  The first step of this unit was for the students to plant seeds.  They planted seeds for the Wisconsin Fast Plant.  These seeds will grow rapidly and allow the students to see their life cycle before the end of the school year.  The students will even get the opportunity to pollinate their plants with dead bees.  Besides learning more about the plant life cycle, our class will be learning about all different animals life cycles.  They will compare and contrast these life cycles with each other.  It's always a fun unit.

Robotics

The students continue to build with their lego robotics.  A couple groups are working on building structures that can withstand a magnitude 8 earthquake.  They're trying to make them as tall as possible.  Joel brought his BB8 to school.  He showed us how he can control it and some other features that go along with it.  His classmates look forward to having him bring it back to school sometime this school year.

New Glasses!

Josephe wore his new glasses for the first time at school today.  We were all impressed by his new spectacles.

Manatees

Sophia and Mateo shared their acrostic poem about Manatees with their classmates today.  They were asked quite a few questions about manatees by their peers.  Overall, they did a nice job answering these questions.

Earthquake!

A few groups are moving onto the third robotics lesson in Lego WeDo 2.0.  This lesson focuses on earthquakes.  The students learn about what causes earthquakes and then create a shaking machine.  Then they create different structures.  They place these structures on their shaking machine and keep increasing the magnitude of the shaker until their structure falls off of it.  Eventually their goal is to create the highest possible structure that can withstand an 8.0 magnitude earthquake.  The students are learning about how to create structures that are earthquake resistant.  Their tasks are posted below the two pictures.

What other factors make structures earthquake resistant?

1. Answer these questions by watching the videos that goes  along with it.  What cause earthquakes, and what are the hazards (problems) they create?  How do scientists rate the strength of an earthquake?  What factors can influence the resistance of buildings during an earthquake?

Plate Tectonics

Earthquakes and Plates

Earthquakes

Earthquake Resistant

Earthquake Resistant 2

2.  Start building.

3.  

Building	Magnitude

Build the highest possible structure to withstand an earthquake with a magnitude of 8.  Measure the height of your structure and list it here.  Explain how you built it and how you made it earthquake resistant.

Try one more time to build a building that is even stronger.  If successful, explain what you changed?

Finally, write a paragraph explaining what your group learned about earthquakes and designing buildings to withstand them.

Khan Academy

The students spent some of their math time working on different measurement problems using Khan Academy.  Khan Academy is a free website for students to use.  It's a great source for families.  It explains different math concepts by using videos.  Also, it allows students to show their understanding of these math skills by providing them with a variety of questions.  This would be a great website for students to use this summer.  I added a link to the part of Khan Academy that we used today in class.

Measurement Khan Academy

Complete these sections of Khan Academy in the following order.

1. Line Plots
2. Word Problems with Volume
3. Compare Areas by Multiplying
4. Area and Distributive Property
5. Decompose Figures to Find Area
6. Quadrilaterals
7. Word Problems with Mass
8. Perimeter Word Problems
9. Time