I hope that everyone has a wonderfully relaxing vacation week. I find that I never have enough time to get the blog updated as frequently as I would like, so now that I have a moment I have put up bunches of pictures of recent visits to the science lab. I don't have pictures from classroom activities because I am always working with small groups and don't always remember!
We have completed our study of the water cycle and will begin to study about weather and climate. We will study the different types of clouds, learn more about fronts, weather instruments (and make some in the science lab), and discover the difference between weather and climate. This will be the last unit in science before switching back over to social studies where our focus will be on Native Americans.
In math we have been working on place value, addition & subtraction, estimating and rounding, and working on solving word problems. Coming up next will be learning about multiplication where we will multiply 3 or 4-digit numbers x 1-digit or multiply 2- or 3-digit x 2-digit. Students that are not fluent with their multiplication facts will struggle more than others. Please, please, PLEASE practice those facts on a nightly basis. As you are driving to different activities, quiz them on different facts. To make it easier, pick about 5 different facts and let those be the focus. Children can create flash cards with these facts and should continue to practice just those 5 before adding more into the mix. By introducing just a few at a time, students are set up for success and are not frustrated because they are stumped with each and every problem that they come across. Students also have access to First in Math to practice and I have bunches of math links for them to practice with. (There is a button on the right side of the computer screen.) We will start doing (non-graded) assessments on a weekly/bi-weekly basis to allow students to see how they are progressing on their facts.