Team Hill News Update
DFES Title One April 7, 2016
Welcome back from Spring Break!
April 8- Tag of Honor 11:00 in the mini- theater
April 14- Early release day
April 18- Student holiday
April 26-29 SC Ready State Testing
April 29- 4th grade Gathering 1:30pm
April 29- Bingo night
May 6 Field Day
May 11 and 12 - PASS Science and Social Studies testing
May 12 4th grade musical performed in the evening
There will be a performance during the school day also.
May 13 Field trip for recycling captains
May 16- MAP testing
May 17- field trip to Saluda Shoals
May 18 - MAP testing
That's enough for now:)
Testing the Force of Magnets
Recording Data
Conducting the experiment
Hive Update!
Our bees swarmed over Spring Break! This is a natural and FASCINATING occurrence. When a beehive becomes overpopulated, around half of the workers and the old queen leave home in a swarm and gather on a nearby tree branch in a cluster. From there, a few hundred scout bees, (the oldest and most "worldly") take off in all directions, searching for ideal new hives (usually tree cavities). Each scout that discovers a promising site inspects it to see if it is suitably roomy and secure, and then returns to the cluster to announce her find by performing a waggle dance. The dance indicates both the location and the quality of the site and "recruits" the other scouts to check it out. After a day or two of gathering intel and checking out the various advertised sites, the bees will collectively fly to their new home leaving a new queen in charge of the ones left behind.
Mr. Scott actually heard our NEW virgin queen "piping" with Mr. Gillaspy (you can hear it here). We need to keep an eye on her to make sure she is laying eggs in the next 3-4 days after her "wedding" or mating flight (which is a once-in-a-lifetime deal for her and kills the drones that have mated with her) This flight is the drones' (boy bees) ONLY purpose in the hive. Our new queen is NOT marked with the white paint- so put on your eagle eyes to see if you can find her next time you come down to the library.
If you have 8 minutes, here is a short, concise vlog (in a British accent) for you and kiddos if you are interested...
All Kinds of Learning Going On
Reading- We are reading "Riding Freedom" together as a class novel and notice how the author keeps us on the edge of our seat at the end of each chapter! We are also working on being critical readers and getting in the habit of going back to the text to cite evidence for our answers.
Writing- We took a fun little detour this week into a writing activity inspired by the latest super hero movie! Students had to choose a super power and write a creative story about how they obtained this power and how they use that power for good. The hardest part was choosing 1 super power- so many to choose from! From this piece of writing we will be working on our editing and grammatical writing skills.
Math- We have moved into customary measurements. I was so very proud of the boys and girls Wednesday as they tackled the difficult task of converting inches to feet, feet to yards, and vice versa. It was an extremely difficult lesson and I saw incredible perseverance. It was really great to see the kids talking about how they solved conversion problems and learning from and through each other.
Science- We have been experimenting with magnets throughout the week and are looking forward to working with electricity! Next week, we will be building an electromagnet and conducting an inquiry as to how we can build a really powerful electromagnet!
Reading logs- Reading logs will be sent home on Fridays and can be returned by the following Friday. Because of Spring Break coming at the start of the last 9 weeks, students will need to have 8 reading logs completed and returned to qualify for the reading tag award this quarter.