Peregrine Press
January 19-22
Schedule
Tuesday: Out and About to ELC to make butter with our Buddies
Wednesday: Art and PE
Thursday: Music
Friday: Fitness Friday
Last Week
We had a very eventful week, filled with some very fun activities. Our Out and About for Chemistry cooking was quite memorable. The students worked in groups to make ice cream, bread, popcorn and a pH tester using boiled cabbage. It was a very action packed activity that taught a lot about states of matter, whether the students really realized that while they were participating or not. I would like to extend an extra big thank you to Erin for planning this activity and Amy for helping out with the execution of it all. We also did an experiment in class to test for chemical changes. This was a bit stressful for me because students were required to wear safety goggles and gloves, and unfortunately many students had a difficult time following the safety precautions. We had a strict talk about being safe, so hopefully students will follow the necessary precautions for future experiments.
We spent quite a bit of time working on the first round of the practice writing test. Each student chose a prompt (there were 3 options) and wrote an essay to fit the prompt. I finished scoring them this weekend and was very pleased with how well the class did. The biggest areas of struggle were spelling, and for students doing the imaginative prompt, the use of quotation marks was a bit off. I did not help them with these at all, so it is completely their writing. I am planning to keep these for their files, but if you are curious about how your child did, just email me and I can tell you there score. I will also be passing them back briefly tomorrow so they can look at my comments and how they were scored.
This Week
We will continue our study of chemistry this week. We will also look more closely at the scientific method because next week students will be conducting their own experiments in class. They will all need to come up with a simple experiment that they can conduct in class. One example would be to test how long it takes for water to evaporate under a heat lamp, versus in the dark. This "Scientific Inquiry" is a requirement by the state, so it is something each child will need to do, and it has to be all their own work. If you want to help them come up with a variable to test, that is fine, but they have to do the work themselves. I have asked that it be connected to chemistry because that is what we have been focusing on lately. I have materials like baking soda, corn starch, soda water, salt, and sugar. The students will only have 1 week to work on this, so please don't encourage an experiment that will take more than a week to see the desired results. Ideally it would be an experiment that can be done in the course of 1 or 2 days so the rest of the days the student can be working on the scientific write up and analyzing of data.
We will take a break from the practice writing test this week and resume that the last week of January. Instead, students will be spending a bit more time on reading. I would like to start another round of literacy circles soon, but I think with how hectic the schedule is for the next few weeks, I will probably have the students individually choose a book they want to read and then do a report on it. That way, each student will be reading everyday and working on certain skills, but they can go more at their own pace.
No School January 29th for Report Card Prep
January 19-22
Schedule
Tuesday: Out and About to ELC to make butter with our Buddies
Wednesday: Art and PE
Thursday: Music
Friday: Fitness Friday
Last Week
We had a very eventful week, filled with some very fun activities. Our Out and About for Chemistry cooking was quite memorable. The students worked in groups to make ice cream, bread, popcorn and a pH tester using boiled cabbage. It was a very action packed activity that taught a lot about states of matter, whether the students really realized that while they were participating or not. I would like to extend an extra big thank you to Erin for planning this activity and Amy for helping out with the execution of it all. We also did an experiment in class to test for chemical changes. This was a bit stressful for me because students were required to wear safety goggles and gloves, and unfortunately many students had a difficult time following the safety precautions. We had a strict talk about being safe, so hopefully students will follow the necessary precautions for future experiments.
We spent quite a bit of time working on the first round of the practice writing test. Each student chose a prompt (there were 3 options) and wrote an essay to fit the prompt. I finished scoring them this weekend and was very pleased with how well the class did. The biggest areas of struggle were spelling, and for students doing the imaginative prompt, the use of quotation marks was a bit off. I did not help them with these at all, so it is completely their writing. I am planning to keep these for their files, but if you are curious about how your child did, just email me and I can tell you there score. I will also be passing them back briefly tomorrow so they can look at my comments and how they were scored.
This Week
We will continue our study of chemistry this week. We will also look more closely at the scientific method because next week students will be conducting their own experiments in class. They will all need to come up with a simple experiment that they can conduct in class. One example would be to test how long it takes for water to evaporate under a heat lamp, versus in the dark. This "Scientific Inquiry" is a requirement by the state, so it is something each child will need to do, and it has to be all their own work. If you want to help them come up with a variable to test, that is fine, but they have to do the work themselves. I have asked that it be connected to chemistry because that is what we have been focusing on lately. I have materials like baking soda, corn starch, soda water, salt, and sugar. The students will only have 1 week to work on this, so please don't encourage an experiment that will take more than a week to see the desired results. Ideally it would be an experiment that can be done in the course of 1 or 2 days so the rest of the days the student can be working on the scientific write up and analyzing of data.
We will take a break from the practice writing test this week and resume that the last week of January. Instead, students will be spending a bit more time on reading. I would like to start another round of literacy circles soon, but I think with how hectic the schedule is for the next few weeks, I will probably have the students individually choose a book they want to read and then do a report on it. That way, each student will be reading everyday and working on certain skills, but they can go more at their own pace.
No School January 29th for Report Card Prep
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