Friday, February 19, 2016

Volume 25: February 22, 2016

A new week with many new experiences. Almost everyone has been on-time with their book share presentation, which shows student commitment at school and at home! Keep working on them. Click here to find out the March Book Share guidelines.

Students are digging deeper with their questioning and beginning to make strong connections about how Humans and nature can impact the weather (our unit's central idea). Our field trip the weather station inspired many ideas about new activities we wanted to do, including measuring a new element of weather we had yet to think about - wind. So, we built our very own weather vanes to measure wind direction. Further inspired, we wanted to explore clouds. So, we drew the sky, but also listened to a fascinating book about different types of clouds and created a cloud book! Another activity students wanted to do was explore myths, poetry, and different styles of writing. As such, we sought your help to find proverbs that related to weather. We have shared them and examined their literal and figurative meanings. Our visual interpretations are hilarious and make us wonder if proverbs are truly wise sayings?! Furthermore, our monthly calendars of different cities across the world has brought us to ask many questions - like what is the difference between weather and climate? Do the sun, moon, and Earth have something to do weather? Does weather and the seasons relate to each other in some way? How does an atlas of the world help us understand weather? These questions and more are being explored as we gain new knowledge through our questioning and activities. You might be wondering by now, how will we put all this information together to show all of what we know? Well, you're going to have to wait and find out!

Although our focus on probability has come to an end, it has not left us. We have been using words like "likely" and "unlikely" to describe clouds, rain, wind, and other elements of weather. In our new unit, Landmarks in the Thousands, we will explore place value, rounding, operations, inequalities, and more. More to come on this...

Our book clubs continue on, but we realized we want to read more about weather in a creative and fun way. Next week we will read a myth about weather and we might even write our own myths that explain why an element of weather exists today. Stay tuned!

Enjoy the week!

Homework:
Monday:  Addition and Subtraction – two ways
Tuesday:  Multiplication and Division – two ways
Wednesday:  IXL Math Grade 4 Do A9 if you  have not completed it.  B1 if you have.
Thursday:  Seasons explanation in your U of I notebook 
Friday: Read, lay in a hammock, and throw a water balloon while riding a uni-cycle.  

 Sometimes it takes a student to explain something...
 Hurriyat getting really into her book share.
 It is the month of birthdays... cupcakes everyday. (I have gained at least one kilo.)
 Probability... our final debates and discussions.

 The weather station was awesome! Above we examine how meteorologists measure ground temperature. You might wonder why this is so important? Well, ask a farmer!
 Yup, it's official. There is no snow.
 To the depths of 3.2 meters, we find a thermometer!
Did you know meteorologists measure pollution, pollen, and other things flying around in the air?
 Our Tashkent meteorologist hard at work.
 Did you know they report the temperature in the shade when you read the forecast? Cool, right?
 It's a hard job, but someone has to collect the rain to measure precipitation.
 Collect some dust!






"Hi, Ms. Irina!"



 Our weather museum tour guide loved us!
 We discovered people who measured weather many years ago. Very cool!

 Doppler radar, satellites, weather balloons, and other technologies help give the best forecasts.
 Well, we were inspired by the weather station. Here we are constructing our very own weather vanes. Oh, they measure wind direction:)

 Which way is North?



 Testing out the weather vane before outside.
 Land hoooooo!






Awesome book share!

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