Persuasive Commercials

To end our unit on persuasive writing, students worked in groups to come up with an idea or product that they could persuade their audience with. Below are the students commercials:

Persuasive Commercials from Julia Lewis on Vimeo.

A Very Merry Week

We have had a fun week together. Here's a peek into our Multicultural Day and Polar Express Day.

We hope that everyone has a safe and restful break. See you in 2011!

Discovering Matter

Essential Question: What will happen to a balloon in a bottle when you blow into it?

Students made a hypothesis to predict what would happen. When students tested their hypothesis, they were surprised by the results. Ask your child to find out what happened during our lab and ask them to explain the results.

Thankful

During this holiday season, we are reminded to be thankful. We wanted to let you know how thankful we are for the support you give your children as well as us. We are also very thankful for all your children and the opportunity we have to know them as individuals.

Students were asked to write what they were thankful for. Some responses were: family, friends, construction workers that built our city, veterans, animals, and our school.

What are you thankful for?

Sink or Float

In Science, we have been working toward the standard: Observe and measure objects in terms of their properties, including size, shape, color, temperature, weight, texture, sinking or floating in water, and attraction and repulsion of magnets.


This past week we have explored objects that sink or float by participating in a "Sink or Float?" lab. Students developed a hypothesis to answer the question: Can matter sink or float in water? For each object, students then determined what type of matter it was and predicted whether it would sink or float. Here were the results:

Sink or Float from Julia Lewis on Vimeo.

We extended our knowledge of the properties of matter with the "Tinkering Lab: Will it Sink or Float?" Students used what they learned in the previous lab to construct a boat that floats with their lab groups. The students were given materials and could choose what they wanted to use out of them. After the boats were complete, we tested them. Most students used materials that they had tested previously or applied knowledge of those objects to untested ones to determine which objects would help to make their boat float.


Check out our featured work from these labs on our Standards Based Bulletin Board (located outside our classroom)!

Once on a Housetop

Our farm is alive with the sound of music! Our farmers are hard at work practicing the songs and learning the motions for our Once on a Housetop holiday play. Students were given their lines this past week. We asked students to keep their lines in their homework folder so that they could practice them at home but still have them available at school. We can't wait to show off our hard work on December 7th! There will be a 10:00 a.m. show for students (if you want to video the play, it would be easier to do at this performance) and 6:00 p.m. show for family and friends. See you there!

Farm Field Trip