2Mu Busy Bee News
Week of January 14, 2019
Readers' Workshop~
- During Readers' Workshop, we read and learned more about Dr. Martin Luther King. We learned more about MLK's amazing accomplishments and all about his life. We discussed the importance of equality and fairness.
- We continued to read our Non-Fiction books on our topic of interest to grow our knowledge and help support our non-fiction writing.
- To help us learn more about our Word of the Month ~ Caring, we learned some important advice tips from Kid President ~ a Guide to Being Awesome. The book is a great, fun read for the children. You can also view a few of the videos we watched by clicking here and here.
Writers' Workshop~
- During Writers' Workshop, we wrote an introduction for our non-fiction books. We learned we could 'hook' our reader by starting our books with onomatopoeia, dialogue, a fun fact, or even a joke or riddle.
- We also started working on writing our chapters for our non-fiction books being sure to add expert words, twin sentences, and some interesting facts.
- During Grammar, we continued to learn more about adjectives.
Mathematicians~
- As mathematicians, we began to explore money. How to count coins and use exact change to pay for items.
- We also started learning how to 'make change' when paying for an item with higher coins or bills. We learned to count up from the cost of the item to the total amount paid using the smallest coins. As you count one starting with pennies, find amounts that are a five or ten to use nickels and dimes. Then, starting with the highest coins, count how much change to give the customer. For example, if an item costs 12 cents and the customer pays with a quarter....start with a penny, count 13, 14, 15; then change to a nickel and start 20, 25. Now start with the nickel and count 5, 10, then pennies, 11, 12, 13. The customer will receive 13 cents change. You could also start with pennies and count 13, 14, 15 and then change to a dime and count 25. Starting with the dime, count 10, 11, 12, 13. The customer still receives 13 cents but receives less coins.
- Since counting money and making change is a multi-step process and takes lots of practice, we will continue to do so during math. We should also continue practicing counting coins and making change at home.
Science~
- As scientists, we learned about changing states of matter. We learned that adding heat to a solid will cause the solid to change to a liquid. We used hot water to observe the changes in ice, butter, and chocolate chips. We observed that the ice and butter melted quickly to a liquid, while the chocolate chip simply softened. We determined that the amount of heat affects how quickly and thoroughly a solid will melt.
- We also learned that cooling liquids can cause them to freeze and form a solid. We placed the butter, chocolate chip, and water into the freezer. We also placed the original 7 liquids in bottles we explored earlier in this unit ~ water, colored water, fabric softener, dish detergent, hand soap, corn syrup, and oil into the freezer. We discovered that all of the liquids froze into solids; yet the oil remained a bit soft and not as hard as the rest of the liquids that froze.
- Our final conclusion, solids can melt by heating them and liquids can freeze by cooling them at low temperatures.
Other Activities~
- Gia Lugiano was our Star Student of the Week. We enjoyed learning more about Gia!
- We attended our School Community Meeting.
- Congratulations, Katie Kubikian our "Inquisitive" Word of the Month Winner
- Congratulations to Sara Guveiyian, our "Perseverance" Word of the Month Winner.
- We visited the computer lab to research our Non-fiction topic on Enchanted Learning and other Kid-friendly sites.