Week of October 21st

It was a short week in the Stingray classroom.  The students worked hard on their PowerPoint presentation on the evolution of their animal.  We invite parents, grandparents and special friends to come view our presentations on Friday, November 8th at 2:15.  The presentations are very impressive, so we hope you can join us!

The students also were very excited about a math activity we did this week called Diffy Squares (Difference Squares).  The students all drew a large square on their paper and labeled the 4 corners with numbers.  They then have to find the difference between the 2 corners and put it in the middle of that line segment, eventually making a new square with the differences between numbers on all 4 sides of the square.  Their goal is to get all 4 sides to equal 0, but to do this in as many steps are possible.  Below you can see 2 Diffy Squares.  The first one needed only 4 steps to get to 0, while the second one had 6 steps.  Two students completed 8 step Diffy Squares, so they are all trying to beat that. 

 

The students thought they were fun and interesting (and I thought they were a great way to practice subtraction!).  Here are some pictures of the students hard at work on their Diffy Squares. 

 



Week of October 14

We are working hard on our evolution projects.  Many of the kids are nearing completion on the PowerPoint presentation, complete with animations.  They are very excited about animations, some a little too excited!  They are turning out really well.  We will have you all in some time soon to check them out. 

 

The students did a fun activity in math on palindromes.  Maybe you heard about it?  A palindrome is a number (or word) that reads the same backwards and forwards.  Some numbers need steps to become a palindrome, and that was what the students were trying to discover.  For instance, if you take the number 23, it isn't a palindrome, but if you add its reverse (the number written backwards) to that, 23 + 32, you get 55, which is a palindrome!  This is called a one-step palindrome.  Other times you have a number like 64.  Add the reverse, 46, to it and your answer is 110, not a palindrome.  Add the reverse again, however, 011 and you get the sum as 121.  The students are working on all numbers up to 100.  Once they get to 89 and 98, it will become very interesting, since this take many steps!  Be sure to ask your child about palindromes if he/she didn’t already tell you about them. 

We also began work on an introduction to archaeology this week.  The students visited a mystery cemetery on Thursday and tried to make inferences and draw conclusions about the “13 grave sites” that were set up.  They are looking for clues  to the social status, gender, and age of the people buried.  The use of logic comes in handy as they explore the clues given to them.  Here are some great pictures from this. 

Week of October 7th

The Stingrays began working on their culminating project for evolution this week.  They were asked to invent a creature that will go through a series of changes due to variations in diet, environment, climate, habitat, etc.  They decide in which era(s) their creature lived and have to research the changes that occurred during the time periods and how that would affect the creature.  They will be creating a PowerPoint presentation over the next few weeks charting this evolution.  Below are the Scientific and Common names for each child's creature. 

Common name: Eroku, Scientific Name: Erokus
Common name: Streak, Scientific Name: Streakabrable
Common name: Crakonia, Scientific Name: Shelfonus Rolfonus
Common name: Palmeins, Scientific Name: Palmeinpo Goade Raple
Common name: Megagearus, Scientific Name: Magmus Megagearus
Common name: Squidipus, Scientific Name: Squidinkapus Shadowus
Common name: Rainda, Scientific Name: Raindifulus Pandonius
Common name: Hedcolus, Scientific Name: Renticifulus Licaraes
Common name: Raimbis, Scientific Name: Raimbisiss
Common name: Poggo, Scientific Name: Ploging
Common name: Rappis Wolf, Scientific Name: Rapoxisians Boisenis Wolfes Juenausianaus
Common name: Bipicorn, Scientific Name: Bipicorniferous Flabbergastifilous
Common name: Soductus, Scientific Name: Soductus Tropicus

The students did a great job sharing the songs they wrote for skip counting.  They will be using these songs to help them with their multiplication facts this year.  Be sure to ask them to sing the 6 different songs to you if you missed Gathering today.  Here are some pictures from their performance.

 

Week of September 30

It was a great week in the Stingray classroom!  The students worked hard writing their first book report from their home reading.  They were asked to write some of the basics-characters, setting, problem, solution, and summary.  Then we also discussed the elements of a good paragraph, and wrote a paragraph explaining why they would or would not want to go on the adventure in their book. 

For the stock market game, we discussed the best times to sell or buy.  We found that some of the groups' portfolios lost money, while others gained.  We talked briefly about the government shutdown and how that is affecting the stock market. 

We played a game in Science explaining how environmental changes affect evolution.  The students were all giraffes in our game and had to collect as many leaves from trees as possible, one at a time, in 15 seconds.  After the first round, any student who didn't gain at least 5 leaves "died" from lack of food.  The next round, drought hit and the leaves moved higher up the tree.  Again, some of the students were unable to gather enough leaves to survive.  For the last round, a fire burned the leaves in all of the low branches and only very high leaves were available.  The students were not allowed to jump to reach the trees, and we soon discovered that only the taller students were able to survive.  The students also reflected on how giraffes might adapt to these or similar changes and how events like this are affecting animal populations today. 

 

 

We also began learning about early human species.  The students are practicing note taking from the SmartBoard and comparing and contrasting different species.  They are noticing the changes in these ancestors, as we look at a timeline of the different species from millions of years ago.