Volume

Gonna keep this one quick since it's late. Yikes! This morning we learned how to measure volume in cubic centimeters. 

Info we already knew that we needed: The area of a base is length x width. Height means how tall something is.

Everyone worked in groups of 4 to construct 4 different rectangular prisms. Once they were assembled, we worked on estimating their volume, filling them with centimeter cubes, and then calculating the volume by multiplying the area of the base times the height. 

Most challenging part? Getting those cubes to fit perfectly in the prisms...

Calculating volume once we figured out the procedure = a piece of cake!

Oh, the toothpaste...

Last Friday Mrs. Albrecht joined our class for a lesson on considering what you say before you say it. As always she had a great activity, and Ashlee was up for a challenge! Her task was to see how quickly she could squeeze toothpaste along a page of lines. Then...the catch...could she get all that toothpaste back into the tube in the same amount of time? No, of course, kind of like when we say something to or about someone it can do damage or have a lasting effect that can't fully be undone. Food for thought!!!

Westside Carnival

Please join us!!!!!

Thank you to the families who have already helped support the Schaeffers through your generous donations to the silent auction!!! Let's fill the school with support that night!!!

Charlotte's Web

LOVED this art project!!! We drew and painted barns to go along with our Charlotte's Web unit. They turned out AWESOME!!!

Blood to the Brain

Research shows that 15 minutes of cardio prior to testing increases student success, and this morning we did that before we completed our Unit 9 math assessment. Several of the kids commented during or after the test that they "totally felt way better and were thinking much more clearly" after beginning the day with exercise. So, I checked with Mrs. Joyce, and each day that we are MAP testing we (or I, since the kids could dress this way every day if they wanted to) will be able to come in "work out" clothes. (I realized quite quickly this morning that wearing boots and doing cardio don't mix. :) ) So...the kids will be writing notes in their agendas to remind them to put on sweats or comfortable clothes they can MOVE in. They asked about shorts and tank tops. These are fine as long as they have either long pants and/or sweatshirts to layer over the top. I also reminded them to make sure they had their snow gear since I wouldn't allow them to stay inside if they "forgot" their snow pants. I'm excited to "move and grove" to get our blood flowing and see some great test scores tomorrow morning!!!

MAP testing season is upon us!!!

Tomorrow we will begin our MAP (Measures of Academic Progress) Testing!

Info directly from the NWEA website...

MAP is:

A Tool for Teachers

Created by educators for educators, MAP assessments provide detailed, actionable data about where each child is on their unique learning path. Because student engagement is essential to any testing experience, NWEA works with educators to create test items that interest children and help to capture detail about what they know and what they're ready to learn. It's information teachers can use in the classroom to help every child, every day.

Adapting the Test to the Student

MAP dynamically adapts to a student's responses as they take the test.

• Answer a question correctly and the test presents a more challenging item
• Miss a question, and MAP offers a simpler item

In this way, the test narrows in on a student's learning level, engaging them with content that allows them to succeed.

Available Assessments

Delivered over the web or through your local network, MAP is a complete set of assessments aligned to national and state curricula and standards: Reading, Math, and Language Arts.

Our test schedule begins tomorrow (April 19th) at 8:30 for our math test.

How can you support your child's success during this test? Please be sure your child goes to bed EARLY tonight and arrives to school promptly on Friday morning. Be sure they have a delicious and healthy breakfast and have had plenty of fresh air! 

Comprehension Strategy: Creating a Mental Image

Today our comprehension skill in reading was "Creating a Mental Image." We discussed how important it is to be tying your schema (your thinking, or the information already in your brain) to details in the text before, throughout, and after reading to create mental images or a mental movie. The advantage of this strategy, is that it allows you have pictures in your head that you can later recall to help remember the story you've been reading. It also encourages kids to consider their senses and visualize what they'd actually experience in terms of sight, smell, hear, touch, etc. You'll see those senses illustrated in the pictures below! Today as I read chapters 3-4 from Charlotte's Web I asked the students to draw what they pictured in their head, and then we shared together at the end. It was amazing how everyone's picture was a little different, and we had a great discussion on how we may all see or capture different details from the text based on our schema. For example, some kids saw the barn with fading red paint since the barns they are familiar with are weathered, and not everyone caught that there was a pitchfork in the barn. The pitchfork isn't a major detail, just part of the background. As I have come to expect, these fabulous readers then started talking about how when you read something more than once you pick up on more and more details (which also happens when you watch TV shows or movies multiple times). I just love how they pull everything together and make connections to so many other things!!! We'll add student captions tomorrow to explain their drawings...

Our mental images from Charlotte's Web:

"I drew Wilbur in the apple tree sitting when the people came running after him. Mrs. Zuckerman yelled, "Wilbur's out!" and everyone chased him back to the barn." --- Haley

"I drew the barn and then, in the other picture, I drew Wilbur trying to get under the hay. Then I drew him trying to get down the hill and in the orchard." --- Dree

"I drew the barn with the hay and the pitchfork with the hay. I drew where Wilbur lived down in the right corner. The picture on the left shows the loose board where Wilbur escaped." --- Kaiden

"I drew Homer chasing the pig and the barn and the fence." --- Caleb

"I drew Wilbur digging up the soil because it was a great picture in my mind, and I could just see that happening in my head." --- Renata

"I drew a picture of the barn in the beginning of Charlotte's Web where her father was going to the barn to kill the pig. I can imagine that in my head." --- Allissa

"I drew the barn and made it look old, and I drew the horses in the barn. I also drew Fern watching Wilbur in his home." --- Ashlee

Concordia College Percussion Ensemble Trip

Junior Achievement

Thank you so much to Jason Opp of AT&T for visiting our class over the last few weeks. He is here with a program called Junior Achievement and has been working with our class on understand how a community is zoned, being in the role of a city planner, creating and designing a community, understanding how to make business decisions and planning a restaurant business, and now learning about the newspaper and given them the opportunity to act as reporters. I have been SO impressed with the Junior Achievement Program and the exposure to "real world" applications. Here are a few pictures from his last few sessions!