May 13, 2015

The students did a fantastic job on the science fair! I was very impressed with all their presentations and how much they had learned. We have our science fair Open House tonight, and everyone is welcome to come see the whole school's projects between 5:30 and 7:30.


We've been busy with a lot of great projects in school, too. Students are continuing to meet with their literature circle books and we've been discussing protagonists and antagonists, how to use quotes from the book to describe characters, and different points of view. Next week, we'll begin using the iPads to create movie trailers. In writing, students have been busy researching different types of animals. They're starting to put their notes together into outlines now, we'll start typing them in computer class next week, and then use different text features to help our readers understand our topic better.

We're continuing our study of geometry in math, looking at squares and rectangles and how to find the perimeter of figures made up of different rectangles. In science, we're studying heat, light, and sound. There are tons of hands-on activities we're doing with these, such as testing to see if a thermometer inside of a mitten will be warmer than one outside, using tuning forks and making our own instruments and telephones to explore sound, and using spectroscopes to see the different colors in light. We will have a test in math and science before the end of May. Math will most likely be on Wednesday, May 27, and science will be on Thursday, May 28.

There are many other fun activities coming up as we wrap up the year! These include our awards ceremony at 6:00 on Wednesday, May 28 (students can dress down the next day if they come to our evening event) and a field trip to the Shedd Aquarium on Wednesday, May 3.