Thursday, April 30, 2015

Hands Off! Rocket Man, A Walk in the PARCC, the Balloon Countdown, an Egg Hunt, and a Frozen-themed Fraction song

Our learning sure has been "hands on" lately.

It's hard to decide where to start!

We conducted an experiment to witness the effects of dirty vs clean hands. And boy, did we see changes--moldy changes!


Last Friday we were fortunate enough to meet Mr. Heission, also known as Rocket Man, and learn a great deal about the space race, rockets, and equipment astronauts use in space.




Our frozen fact families were perfect fits amid a snowy, snowy winter.


Greek and Latin roots such as aqua, mort, struct, mal, phone comprised our forest of root trees. These roots become particularly valuable when determining the meaning of unfamiliar words. For example, knowing that mal means poor or bad, helps us determine the meaning of malnutrition.


Our balloon countdown to PARCC led us on a synonym egg hunt around Room 16...

 



 



We have reviewed some test-taking strategies for reading passages and solving word problems. When beginning a new passage it is important to activate our schema and recall background knowledge on the topic. Previewing the questions first gives us a purpose for our reading. Reading questions and bolded words carefully allows us to focus on what is being asked and highlights multiple parts to a question. Finally, slashing the trash eliminates wrong answers and helps narrow our options when responding to multiple choice questions.

http://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0CAcQjRw&url=http%3A%2F%2Fderisclassroom.blogspot.com%2F2013%2F01%2Ftest-taking-reading-strategy-runners.html&ei=A9VCVbimGKO_sQTO1YHoCA&bvm=bv.92189499,d.cWc&psig=AFQjCNFVttdzt1fT5z01woKCsu0o8jJL1w&ust=1430529643750424


Mrs. Killinger was kind enough to let us borrow Dr. Seuss's Hooray for Diffendoofer Day-- a motivational read the day before our first day of PARCC testing.



In math we have kicked off our exploration of fractions. We learned the difference between the numerator and denominator. This fraction video has a Frozen twist I'm sure you'll enjoy!