HOMEWORK

4th Grade Math: Dream House Reflection

5th Grade Math:  Finish Thursday classwork & 1 page.

Reading for 20 minutes

After School Homework Club:  Mondays and Thursdays from 3:30pm to 4:30pm in Cerrito.  This is a quiet place to do HW and get support from Karen and middle school volunteers. 

UPCOMING EVENTS:

• Puberty Education info. event, Monday, March 10, 7:00-8:00pm
• Conferences, Thursday and Friday, March 13 & 14

Math Night Photos from Strawberry Classroom

Math Night and More About Density

HOMEWORK

4th Grade Math: No homework assigned.

Tonight is Math Night:  Please come to your child's math classroom (5th in Cerrito, 4th in Strawberry) to participate in activities and view student work.  In Strawberry we will have an agenda for any group math activities planned for the evening.

5th Grade Math:  3 pages due Thursday.

Reading for 20 minutes: (read chapters 15 & 16 in By the Great Horn Spoon, and complete your job by Thursday)

After School Homework Club:  Mondays and Thursdays from 3:30pm to 4:30pm in Cerrito.  This is a quiet place to do HW and get support from Karen and middle school volunteers. 

UPCOMING EVENTS:

• Math Night, Wednesday, March 5, 6:00-7:30pm
• Puberty Education info. event, Monday, March 10, 7:00-8:00pm
• Conferences, Thursday and Friday, March 13 & 14

Today in Strawberry:  We had a Chemistry morning.  Continuing our focus on density, we reviewed last week's density calculations and results from the experiments with cubes made from different materials.  To try to demonstrate the density of water is actually "1,"as was suggested by students from our cube tests, we followed the same steps to find the density of 100ml of water: measure the mass and divide the mass by the volume.  Our mass measurement came to 95.55 grams (about as close as "eye-balling" the volume of a graduated cylinder can get).  So, with human error in mind, there was a general agreement that water must be a density of 1 gram /cubic centimeter.  This led to testing the density of oil, alcohol and salt water in comparison to water using the density cube results to make predictions.  One result is that we discovered alcohol has less density than water (cubes that could float in water, sank in alcohol).   

The last test we did today was to combine liquids to see how different densities can affect volume.  We discovered that when mixing equal volumes of water and alcohol together, the  resulting volume decreases.  For example, 50ml + 50ml of water makes 100ml of water.  Same for alcohol.  However, 50ml of water + 50ml of alcohol made 97ml of solution.  Our next work will experiment with this concept a bit more and delve into particle size.

Tomorrow Night is Math Night

HOMEWORK

4th Grade Math: No homework assigned.

5th Grade Math:  3 pages due Thursday.

Writing homework:  Persuasive writing research (for those who did not complete this already).  Students inquire at home about their issue.

Reading for 20 minutes: (read chapters 15 & 16 in By the Great Horn Spoon, and complete your job by Thursday)

After School Homework Club:  Mondays and Thursdays from 3:30pm to 4:30pm in Cerrito.  This is a quiet place to do HW and get support from Karen and middle school volunteers. 

Math Night:  Please come to your child's math classroom (5th in Cerrito, 4th in Strawberry) to participate in activities and view student work.  In Strawberry we will have an agenda for any group math activities planned for the evening.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

• Math Night, Wednesday, March 5, 6:00-7:30pm
• Puberty Education info. event, Monday, March 10, 7:00-8:00pm
• Conferences, Thursday and Friday, March 13 & 14

Dream House Gallery Walk:  Today in 4th grade math the students participated in a gallery walk to view and comment on each other's dream houses.   

 Writing appreciative comments during the gallery walk.

A dream house with a creative flair.

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HOMEWORK
4th Grade Math, Dream House project: Last night to work on paperwork is tonight.  All paperwork for the house is due tomorrow morning at 8:30.

Dream House Project

Furnishings page examples and grid paper

5th Grade Math:  1 page of packet

Writing homework:  Persuasive writing research.  Students inquire at home about their issue.

Reading for 20 minutes: (read chapters 15 & 16 in By the Great Horn Spoon, and complete your job by Thursday)

UPCOMING EVENTS:

• Math Night, Wednesday, March 5, 6:00-7:30pm
• Puberty Education info. event, Monday, March 10, 7:00-8:00pm
• Conferences, Thursday and Friday, March 13 & 14

Today in Strawberry:  Students continues planning their persuasive writing piece.  Many identified a need to research their topics to build stronger arguments.  

During Cultural Studies we viewed several short videos about a slightly alternate version of historical events related to the "discovery" of North America and California Gold Rush topics.  In this version, 1000 years before Columbus made his historic excursion, a group of monks from China sailed to North America and down the coast of California.  Their travels were recorded in a scroll including references to giant redwood trees and golden hills.  We discussed possibilities about why this part of World History does not come up, yet we have songs about Columbus.  Students had insightful perspectives, including that the Chinese did not then try to settle the territory.  We also followed the journey of a Chinese man who came as a gold seeker and became a physician in Fiddletown Ca. and eventually is credited for saving Leland Stanford's wife from lung disease.  Lastly, we learned that the invention of the gold mining tool called a cradle or rocker box is credited to Chinese miners.  All told, some 300,000 Chinese (mostly men at the time) came to California between 1850 and 1880, and most remained here.

 Researching topics for persuasive writing using the computer.

 Other students decided to conduct surveys, and went around the classroom with clipboards getting feedback about their topic.

 Eureka!  The Gold Rush in Strawberry came to a close.  We totaled the scores from each team and surpassed our class goal of 4000 points.  

 Guinea Pig days!

Squeak, coo, nibble.

Photos of New Strawberrians!

At long last we have two new friends joining us this week.  Names to be determined.  Cuteness factor already determined.  These two lovely girls are calm, friendly and mature (about 4 years old).  They are "rescued" guinea pigs from owners who were unable to continue their commitment as care takers.  We have all the necessities to get started in the classroom, so come Monday morning our Guinea pig days will begin.

Have a great weekend!