5th Grade Buddies

Yesterday we met up with our 5th grade buddies from Mr. Cottone's class.  We used the Ipad's to reinforce a concept we have been covering in math.  In our math curriculum students have been working on figuring out how to use different shapes to create new ones.  For example: You can use 6 triangles to make a hexagon.  Different shapes can be joined in different ways to fill the same space.  This concept has been a little tricky for the K kiddos.  When we met up with our buddies we played a game called "Slice It," where students had to draw different lines to break up the larger shape into smaller shapes.  Below are a few kids working with their buddies and then also an excerpt from our math workbook to show what the app was reinforcing.  Thanks Buddies!

Introduction to Our Science Unit

Our new science unit is Wood and Paper. We are going to be focusing on wood for the first part and then paper later in other investigations. We are also going to be using a visible thinking routine called, "Peel the Fruit" to track our learning. Think of an orange and all of its layers.  The outer peel is what you can only see when you are handed an orange. On the largest circle we recorded what we observed from looking at the wood.   When you peel the orange you come to the next layer which is white in color.  On the next paper, that is white in color we wrote down any questions we had thus far about wood.  We will also be adding to these questions as we go through each investigation.  Next when you open up the orange you get to that orange juicy layer.  On this orange paper that represents this layer we will be recording any answers our questions that we discover as we do our investigations.  The last part of the orange that you come to are the seeds.  The seeds are the core of the matter and represents the overall arching idea or concept children should take away from the unit and the investigations.    In the pictures below it shows children observing different types of wood closely. Students were asked to describe what they see/feel and notice about the wood the first day. One of our questions was, "why is wood for building things?  After some reading came to the conclusion that wood is stable, sturdy and strong and many things can be made out of wood.  We later were discussing that people can change wood and also machines can be used to change wood.  Wood can be painted, cut/sawed, carved, etc.... Today we later proved that theory when we sanded wood on our own.  Students will be bringing home the wood that they sanded and changed today.