Learning with Mrs. Lipe: Week in Review: September 22-26

As you probably heard, we finally got to test out our solar ovens on Monday with some ooey, gooey s'mores. Oh my goodness...the good news was that they worked. The bad news was...that they worked...and the kids were a MESS! Melted chocolate was everywhere, thank goodness we were outside. We trooped into the bathroom right away to wash our hands after our sweet treat. It was a fun experience for the kids, and on Tuesday, they were asked to write a reflection about how their oven worked. Students took an open-note test on Thursday over forms of energy. Those will come home in Thursday folders next week, but of course, you can view their grades online anytime through Home Access Center.

In math, we began the week learning about rounding numbers. I used a strategy I read about on a teacher blog called the rounding highway and the students really seemed to grasp the concept that rounding is about finding the closest number (closest 10 or closest 100). We imagined numbers being mile markers on a highway, with exits at each of the 10s or 100s, and practiced identifying which "exit" would be closest to any given number. From rounding, we went into estimating in problem solving. And finally, on Friday, we learned a new strategy for addition called compensation. Ask your child to explain it to you! In a nutshell, it is this: 23 + 47 can be though of as 22+48 or 21+49 or 20 + 50, which is easy to calculate in our head that the total is 70. Essentially, they learned that you can take away from one part of an equation, and add it to the other part, to get easier numbers to work with.

In reading, we made text-to-text connections, comparing Judy Blume's The Pain and the Great One to Patricia Polacco's My Rotten, Redheaded Older Brother. Students worked through another issue of Time for Kids on Tuesday with the substitute while I was out. I look forward to next week's TFK edition, because I am done with reading testing, so we can go through it as a class and I can teach them strategies for answering basic comprehension questions.

In writing, the students did more work with Show Don't Tell. They were assigned an emotion to illustrate and write a paragraph about...without using the actual word! Readers will have to use the clues they give in their writing to determine what the emotion is. We should have a new bulletin board display of those projects by mid-week!

In honor of Education Go Get It Week, we spent some time researching various careers and working on our professional resumes. Next time you are at the school, be sure to check out our display of resumes outside the classroom. On Friday, we enjoyed the school-wide career fair. Our class saw presentations from a photographer, a family physician, a veterinarian, and many more.