Western Fun Day

Yee Haw! Our cowgirls and cowboys have been hard at work learning about our state symbols and regions. Throughout the week, we enhanced our lessons about Texas with other subjects such as art and language arts. We created cowboys and cowgirls during an engaging self portrait opportunity.  Here are some pictures of our finished products. 

As an exciting final event this week, we celebrated Western Fun Day where we learned a Texas dance, rode on a pony, and enjoyed some real Texas chili and cornbread. We have included some pictures from our day. You can also watch our show below to join in the fun! Let us know what you think by leaving us a comment! Enjoy!

https://vimeo.com/205465194

Motion and Math

In science this week, we studied motion. We learned how motion is the way that objects can move. We begin this exciting study with an exploration of marbles where we learned that items can move in a straight line, back and forth, round and round, in a zigzag, and up and down. Then, we had an opportunity to explain these different motions by practicing these motions with streamers. Finally, we experimented with building our own paper airplanes and seeing how we could make them move. We also spent some time exploring ramps and how they can make an object move faster. Here is a video of our exciting explorations. We hope you enjoy the show! Leave us a comment and let us know what you think!

  https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_CGJElEYcj8RlNfS0ZzS3NXZzQ/view?usp=sharing

In math, we have been working hard to solve addition problems, using model drawing. This is the math program that they use in Singapore. Research has shown it to be very effective. Model drawing is a way for children to not only solve a story problem but to be able to prove why the answer is true. In order for our students to have a solid foundation in number sense, we find the ability to fully explain your reasoning behind your answer to be a very important skill. Model drawing allows our students the opportunity to practice doing this. Below you can see how we were able to solve problems that we created on our own using the model drawing strategies. 

Music Around the World--Week 8--Review

We had a wonderful morning together reviewing all of the songs that we have learned in our Music Around the World class this session of STEAM School. We can not wait to share our Music Around the World Celebration Night with you all on Thursday night, May 18th at 7:00 P.M. Please save this night on your calendar for our program and keep listening to your CDs so that you can make sure that you know all of the words for our show. Here is a video of our time together today. We hope you enjoy it! Leave us a comment and let us know what you think!

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_CGJElEYcj8OUYxeEZhNGRrWk0/view?usp=sharing

Legoland

What a wonderful field trip we had to Legoland. This event culminated our unit on tall towers and bridges. After learning about what a building needs to remain strong and how the parts of a building work together as a system, we traveled to Legoland where we created our own spinning tops and explored Legoland. Watch our show to see our adventure. Let us know what you think by leaving us a comment!

https://vimeo.com/204460899

Under Construction

During our study of systems this week, we talked about tall towers, bridges, and nests. We discussed what a building would need to have in order to withstand natural disasters and be a good structure for a home. Here are the towers that our children created in class this week. These towers were the inspiration for our towers that we built at the end of the week at Legoland. We have also included pictures of the bridges that we created and the nests that we made to try to save Humpty Dumpty from cracking when he fell off the wall. Leave us a comment and let us know what you think about all of our exciting constructions from this week. 

https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_CGJElEYcj8VFpHOUJralBaMms/view?usp=sharing