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Monday, May 13, 2013

Different Kinds of Resources

Written by Ryan (22), Alec, and Claire

Resources are an important part of life.  It's important that we save them.  There are three kinds of resources, which are natural resources, human resources, and capital resources.  

A capital resource is a tool, equipment or building that helps people, such as calculators, cars, and utensils.  The next type of resource is a natural resource.  A natural resource is something that is grown or found naturally on the earth, such as wood, water, minerals, and soil.  The last type of resource is human resource.  A human resource is a person who provides a service or produces a good, such as doctors, lawyers, construction workers, and electricians.

What do you do to take care of our resources?

The Digestive System

Written by Phoebe, Lily, and Niko

Today we are going to learn about the digestive system!  First, you break the food into smaller pieces with your teeth.  Next, you swallow the food, and it goes down your esophagus (which is the throat) and into your stomach.  Then, your stomach shakes the food into liquid and sends it through the small intestines while the food is getting thinner and thinner.  

The nutrients from the food passes out of the small intestine to your bloom, and the blood carries the nutrients to every part of your body.  Some of the food goes into your large intestine.  This is the waste that the body doesn't need.  You get rid of the waste when you go to the bathroom.

Have you ever wondered what is the digestive system?

Capture the Flag for PE

Written by Allison, Trinity, and Josh

Last week we played Capture the Flag with Mr. Adrian on Thursday.  We were split into two teams.  The goal was to run over to the other team's side to grab the flag without getting tagged.  Then you need run back over to your own side or throw the flag to a teammate on your team's side.  If that happens then you just scored a point!

If you get tagged by the other team when you're on their side, you get sent to the other team's jail.  To get out of jail, your teammate has to tag you, and then you and your teammate have to walk back to your side of the team.

Have you ever played Capture the Flag?

Friday, May 10, 2013

Nonfiction Text Features and Sharing Board

Written by Hannah, Tsubasa, and Ryan (22)

Today we will teach you about nonfiction text features, and then we will tell you about the nonfiction sharing boards that are class did.  First mission: teach you about some nonfiction text features.  These features are different things you will find in nonfiction books.  One feature is photographs.  Photographs are real pictures and can be of lions, pandas, walruses or anything that the book is about!  Another type of feature is table of contents.  The table of contents will tell me what chapter is about what and on which page the chapter begins.  For example, I have a book about butterflies that I am reading.  If I wanted to learn about the adult butterfly I would turn to chapter 4.   Now we will tell you about the nonfiction sharing boards.

We read a nonfiction book and show what we learned from the book on a sharing board.  The books we used are The Titanic: Lost and Found, Money in the USA, The Hard Stuff! All About Bones, National Parks, The Olympics Past and Present, and Dogs at Work.  On our sharing boards, we must show a couple of things:  title and author, the main idea of the book, an example of a chart or graph, some vocabulary words, an amazing fact, a connection, how we find more information about our topic, and examples of text features found in the book.  It was a lot of work, but we did it.

Have you ever made a nonfiction sharing board?  Do you know any other kinds of nonfiction text features?



Light and Mirrors in Science

Written by Andrew, Aliza, and Alex (3)

Last week we learned how to reflect light.  We divided into groups of four and turned off the lights.  We used flash lights to shine light onto four different mirrors.  The light bounced from one mirror to the other.  We used clips to hold the mirrors up so that we didn't need to use our hands.

Do you know anything else about light?  Have you ever done this before?

Literature Circles

Written by Enya and Kirti

In reader's workshop we are doing literature circles.  Each group has 4 people, and we do role sheets for our book every week.  The four role sheets are:  summarizer, vocabulary enricher, illustrator, and connector.  Every week we do different activities to prepare for our meetings on Thursdays.  At our meetings, we will discuss our activities and books.  There are 6 different books:  Stone Fox, Lemonade War, The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane, Flat Stanley and the Flying Chinese Wonders, The School Mouse, and The Best School Year Ever.  Literature circles help us learn about different books.

Have you ever done a literature circle?

Editing in Writer's Workshop

Written by Alex (4)

We are editing our informational article.  We're looking for punctuation, capitalization, and spelling.  If something doesn't look right we fix it with a red pen.  When we're done editing we start publishing.

Do you edit your writing work?