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.