January 2017

          Welcome to 2017!  It was great to hear about the students' adventures during the holiday break.  It was also nice that everyone came back to school with the same enthusiastic attitudes that I saw in 2016.  I am really enjoying this class for many reasons.  They work well together, they support each other, and they genuinely care about one another.  January has been a busy month, and I would like to share a few of the highlights with you.  

Surviving in the New World is hard!

An interview by Mrs. Newton

          After returning from the holiday break, our colonists continued on their journey, by settling in the New World.  Each day, their fate is decided by cards drawn from the Discovery simulation pack.  Some days are pleasant and I hear cheers of joy from the colonies as their "farmers work hard and harvest lots of corn and potatoes" and their hunters traps worked well and they trapped several critters to increase their food supply.  Unfortunately, other days include tragedies, such as "your fishing boat sinks and all on board die," or "Native Americans attack a group of hunters, killing 3."  On Wednesday, January 18th all of the colonies reported out to the class sharing some of their experiences.

  

 New Blundon Colony preparing for their presentation.

Work Places in Math

          Students enjoy working on their math skills through games.  "Work Places" is a time during math when students practice basic skills that we have learned in earlier math sessions.  

Beat the Calculator:  Multiplication!  

Ava was able to solve this problem more quickly in her head than her partner could do it on the calculator! 

Farren and Maria enjoying a game of Beat the Calculator:  Multiplication! 

Owen and Tara Race to 2 on this fraction racetrack
by adding fractions with unlike denominators.

Madeline and Sean in the middle of an intense game of
Beat the Calculator:  Fractions! 

VICTORY!  Celebrating beating the calculator to win a card!
It is great to see Ava, Casey and all of their classmates
having so much fun in math!

Miranda and Taylor enjoy a good game of Beat the Calculator:  Multiplication.
As you can see, a regular deck of cards works too!
This game could be played at home.

There was a lot of animation and some (mostly friendly) competition between
Ezra and Gary while playing Beat the Calculator:  Multiplication!

Word Study

          With the 2nd Annual OQS Spelling Bee just around the corner we practiced by sorting words from the official spelling bee list.  This word sort was a group project, with students sorting the words in a variety of ways such as alphabetically, by number of syllables, number of vowels, short/long vowel sound in the first syllable, etc... they could be sorted in many different ways.  

Martin Luther King, Jr.

          To celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. we watched the "I Have a Dream" speech online and I also read the speech to the class.  The book that I read from has illustrations by 15 different illustrators.  Each student got a portion of the speech and the photo that went with it.  Their task was to explain what the photo was showing and how it related to that part of his speech.  Stop by and see our bulletin board sometime.  I've shared a few pieces below.