Jan 5 to 9

It is time to ROCK!!!!!

This week we began our study of Geology. Over the next 5 weeks or so we will be learning about rocks, minerals, and the earth.

Reading - This week we read a book called Science Close-up Rocks. This book gave us a first look at the rock cycle. First we learned that there are rocks called igneous. What are igneous rocks? Then we learned about sedimentary rocks. Do you remember what a sedimentary rock looks like? Finally we learned about a 3rd type of rock. When igneous and sedimentary rocks are under extreme heat and pressure they can change into this 3rd type of rock. Do you remember what it is called? Do you know what it is called when they change? As we read about these rocks in our book we also read an article about each type to give us a closer look at them. Students had to make a list of specific examples of each type of rock.

We also spent a day reading in our FOSS Science Stories book. We read about how rocks are used to make many famous memorials and monuments around the world. Can you name any of them and what type of rock they are made of?

Science - What is a mock rock? It is a very cool name and we spent a lot of time working with them. First we found all of the properties of our mock rock. What is a property? What unit did we use to weigh our mock rock? What unit did we use to measure our mock rock? Next, we used picks to take apart our mock rock. We separated the ingredients into piles. BUT ... we had a pile of sediment and we didn't know what was in it. We decided to add water to the sediment and see if anything would float up to the top. We were very suprised the next day when the water was yellow. Something had dissolved into the water. We decided to pour a little water out into a dish and let the water evaporate. We are hoping that something will be left in the dish on Monday when we get back to school.

Math - We are continuing our study of place value. We have been reading and writing big numbers all the way up to 1,000,000. We also learned to play a game called number top-it or snap. Can you read these numbers outloud? 36,008 - 97,506 - 109,056 - 682,231
What is the smallest 6 digit number that you can write? You can only use each number one time.

Writing - What is a topic sentence? This week we looked at a bunch of passages. In each one we tried to find the topic sentence. We also looked at a list of details and wrote our own topic sentences.

Spelling - What is a homophone? We played games... we wrote sentences... we worked in groups... we worked by ourselves.... but I think we all know what a homophone is now. :) YIPPIE!!!

Project!!! - Don't forget to work on your rock project that you recieved on Friday. It is due on Tuesday Jan 20th.

3rd quarter Grades are online!!!! Make sure you are not missing any work AND see if there are any assignments under 70% that you can correct and turn in for a better grade.

FINALLY - A special welcome to our student teacher for this semester. Ms Kelley comes to us from the University of Arizona. We are all very excited to have her as part of our class. She comes with lots of teaching experience! She will be with us until the end of April. She will be posting a little bio about herself this soon... so stay tuned.