Happy Friday everybody and WELCOME BACK!
I sincerely hope you all enjoyed your Spring Break and that your children especially are refreshed and ready to roll….into simple machines! We kicked off our new exploration this week of the six simple machines. How many does your child remember? We focused this week on the wedge. Yum, who doesn’t love a wedge salad? Just as we do with every new exploration, we used a KWL chart to record what we want to learn and what we already know about simple machines. Some of the questions we came up with were: What exactly is a simple machine? How do they help us? How do I build one? How many are there?
Did you know an airplane is considered a wedge? The front on an airplane is wedge shaped. How does this help it fly in the sky? It has to cut through the air with force similar to an ax cutting through a tree trunk! Earlier this week, Ms. Marlena gave your kiddos a fun challenge of making their own paper airplanes, however they’d like, and we then tested them. How far did it go? What could you change next time? Why did yours fly 50 inches further than someone else’s? On Tuesday, we set up a variety of loose parts such as large craft sticks, coffee lids, different sized cardboard, etc. so everyone could build their own door stopper (wedge) and then we tested them out! Did it work? Why or why not? Ms. Marlena planned a fun Friday afternoon activity using wedges! Everyone was given a bar of soap and a plastic knife (wedge) to create their own soap sculptures! How did the knife help you? Are there other tools that could help, too? Is the knife more helpful than a popsicle stick?
We also reviewed some Secret Stories like mommy e, I tries E on for size, ou & ow, aw, when two vowels go a walkin’ the first one does the talkin’, er & ir & ur, ar, and al. Everyone then wrote a sentence about what they did over spring break and then looked to see which Secret Stories we used. It sounds like you all had a blast!
Now that we are on Part 4 of Wonder, we are reading from Jack’s perspective. It’s interesting to hear his thoughts on Auggie before he really even met him. Ask your child about it! Hint: Jack and his brother “met” Auggie a year ago at the park. What happened? How did this interaction contribute to Jack agreeing to be one of the three kids giving Auggie a tour of the school before the school year began?
Home Connection:
- https://www.generationgenius.com/videolessons/simple-machines-video-for-kids/
- https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QBx7Q2KtSQU
- https://mysteryscience.com/trending/mystery-2/solar-eclipse-2017/126#slide-id-2730
- https://www.foldnfly.com/47.html
Books we read this week:
- Newton and Me by Lynne Mayer
- Wonder
- Total Solar Eclipse: A Stellar Friendship Story by Jayme Sandberg
- The Berenstein Bears: Bears On Wheels by Stan and Jan Berenstein
- Kit and Kaboodle Go On a Roller Coaster by Michelle Portice
Announcements/Reminders:
- We’re still missing 3 books from our reader set. Please search over the weekend. We want to start sending readers back home with your children! If for any reason there was a misunderstanding, please keep in mind your children should STILL be reading daily with you. Although they are not borrowing one from our classroom library, they should still be reading one of their own with you everyday.
- We have gym/movement on Mondays/Wednesdays/Fridays. These are gym uniform days. Please make sure your children are not in their dress uniforms and they are in their sweats which allow for much better and more comfortable movement. Additionally, they should be in gym shoes everyday, regardless of dress/gym uniform.
- Did you travel for the solar eclipse? Pictures or it didn’t happen! Just kidding, but we would love to see! Ms. Maria included a Google album in Parent Notes where you can pics! Also, many of you visited some very cool destinations! We would LOVE to see some pictures as a class! If you have a minute, please feel free to send me a few and we can put them on the tv in our class so we can see all the cool things your child is telling us about!
I can’t wait for Sunday! Get out there and enjoy the beautiful weather everybody! Have a wonderful weekend and see you all on Monday:)
-Ms. Anna
