May Flowers

Dear Families & Friends,

     The students were so excited when they saw the huge manilla folder on my desk this week because they knew exactly what that meant....pen pal letters!  It has been so fun having 4th graders from San Francisco as our pen pals.  This month we wrote back to them about the exciting events in our lives & decorated the letters with flowers to represent spring.

 

     We were also really excited this week because now not only do we have tadpoles...we have SNAKES!   Mr. Bill came on Wednesday and brought us 2 garter snakes to keep as class pets. He also brought in a gopher snake, California king snake and a rattle snake (but we aren't keeping those thank goodness).  The students learned about the eating and sleeping habits of snakes and also got to hold the gopher and California king.  We kept the rattle snake in its tub.

Holding a gopher snake.

Mr. Bill teaching us about snakes.

 

 

Our two new friends! 

     In math this week we were focusing on measurement.  The students reviewed tools and units of length & capacity.  We reviewed perimeter and area and then were introduced to volume.  At first this concept of space being taken up by a 3 dimensional figure was a little mystifying to the students but as the week went on I believe the light bulb went on.  We also discussed units of weight & the tools used to weigh objects.  The class really loved learning about the platform scale.  This is the scale used to measure objects over 1 ton, like semi-trucks.  Broc shared with us that his dad, who is a truck driver, has to weigh his truck on scales like these too keep safe on the road.

finding the volume of 3-D shapes

     We finished our how-to book this week.  Each student chose one activity in which they excel and created a page for the book.  It will be in our class library if you would like to see it.

Giovanni's page: how to make a Caesar salad

We are also continuously adding new words to our synonym & antonym chart.  The students are trying to refrain from using words like "happy" or "sad" in their writing.  Instead of happy they can use elated & instead of bad they can choose detrimental.  Or maybe they can use loathe instead of dislike.  I am excited to watch them become excited when they learn new vocabulary!  Something else that is helping us with our vocab. is the new book we started last week called The Phantom Tollbooth.  Please ask your students about this book as they love talking about it in class and probably have a lot to say to you about it.

UPCOMING EVENTS:

May 23rd we are trying to organize a field trip to Old Town.  This trip will go along with our social studies unit on San Diego's history.  Please keep this date in mind because we will need chaperones!