Monday Afternoon

Wow. What a day! It was a great day in class with 3FM. We started off the day with a group activity in which the students were working on their cooperation skills. Many of our Social Studies and Science activities involve group work and thus, it is important that students be able to work together in a positive manner.

Their assignment was to create an animal and decide what it would look like, what it would eat, where and how it would live. At the end of the activity they had to come up and present their animal to the class - and explain how they made the decisions about their animals.

Let me tell you how impressed I was with how well they cooperated to create their animals.

Ask them what they created - they were sure excited to present their animals to the class.

In Science, we discussed the term properties. We played a game of I-Spy to help the students understand the concept that properties are like clues that tell us about something. Properties include things like shape, size, color, texture, how something is made and what it is made up of. The students were great at making predictions based on the information that they were given as clues. Here is an example that was used in class:

1. I spy something that is manufactured.

2. It is made from a tree.

3. The inside of this object is one of the softest minerals.

4. It is small and narrow.

5. It is used as a writing tool.

Answer - A pencil

As I'm sure all of you are very much aware - our first unit in Science is about Rocks and Minerals. Tomorrow we are going on the Rock Walk. I just want to take this time to say thank you so much for your patience in regards to the on-line permission forms. I know that it has been quite frustrating for some of you - and I appreciate your understanding as we have tried to work through some of the quirks in this new program.