Please note: I did not realize that yesterday's blog post did not go through until late last night, so this is the same post as yesterday with some updates and photos from today as well.
Field Trip tomorrow: Oakland Museum history gallery tour. Depart 9:00, and return by 3:15. Please bring a snack, lunch, water bottle and walking shoes! We are traveling by BART.
Homework
4th Grade Math: The students assembled a packet today making choices among different levels of mathematics. Each student should have 4 sheets: Instructions for Factor BINGO, a Factor BINGO board page, one long division page and one fraction page. Tomorrow in class we will work on the assignments too, so keep the pages in your binder!
Option 1 Division
Option 2 Division
Option 1 Fractions
Option 2 Fractions
Factor BINGO boards
Factor BINGO rules
Factor BINGO is a great way to practice multiplication facts, and the kids like it! Linked are BINGO boards for facts from the 3s to 12s.
5th Grade Math: POW due Friday
Costume & Props: The students made a list of items they will need for their costume to bring from home for their scenes. Bring in the items by tomorrow so we are ready to film!
Reading 20 minutes: Historical Fiction book club books! (don't forget to record your reading in the planner)
Upcoming Events:
Field Trip, Wednesday, May 7 (8:45-3:15) Oakland Museum History Gallery
Save the Date: May 29, 6:00-8:30pm, Performance of Learning & 5th Grade Tribute in the classroom and Depot.
Field Trips
- Wednesday, May 7 (8:45-3:15) Oakland Museum History Gallery
- Friday, May 23 (8:45-3:00) Sailing on Bay and nautical skills workshop.
- Thursday, June 5 (7:45-4:30) Marshall Gold Discovery State Park, Coloma CA
- New Field Trip: On June 5 we are headed to Gold Country! We have an early departure of 7:45am and a late return of 4:30pm (traffic depending). We will need drivers. It is a long drive, but a fun trip. We will explore and tour the town, visit the museum and Sutter's MIll, followed by panning for gold in the South Fork of the American River.
Yesterday and Today in Strawberry: In the morning yesterday special guests, Kate Klaire and Norman Johnson visited Strawberry to involve the students in a lesson on identity. The students were led in an activity to explore their own identity, then use a Venn diagram to compare with a partner, followed by comparing to another partnership, and lastly as a class. Kate and Norman will return tomorrow to begin the next step. Their lessons parallel our focus on identity in the historical fiction books we are currently reading, and in broad way connect to the performance project where social identity is pivotal.
Solar Ovens: Continuing our focus on Energy, and our use of magnifying glasses to harness the energy of the sun, on Friday the students embarked on building solar ovens from scratch. The goal is to work through the design challenge of how to make an oven that will harness the energy from the sun. On Monday the groups completed their first design, and today (Tuesday) they baked a cookie.
On Friday, after sharing design ideas, the teams began assembling their ovens from scratch.
Going from drawing concept to reality.
Today they continued their efforts using foil to reflect light and black paper to absorb heat.
Each design is unique.
Testing the oven. Students placed thermometers inside to see how effective their design is.
Today: A lonely ball of cookie dough at 8:30am. The sun had not yet reached the ovens.
Solar ovens and the control cookie on a plate in the sun.
The students checked on the cookies throughout the day, and adjusted the position of their ovens.
The ovens reached upwards of 200ยบ Fahrenheit.
Though not as cooked as the cookies we placed in the electric oven, they were crispy on the top!
