Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Food Webs

Here's a website from Austrialia. Have fun exploring 4 different food webs!!

Want some more info? Click HERE. When the page opens, click on the oval shape that says "Play the Game." This website has lots of other interesting activities and information.

Let me know what you think.

Science!!

We have been studying ecosystems, food chains, and food webs. Not sure what they are? Check out our on-line glossary over on the right! -->--->--->--->

Check out the review activity on food chains and food webs!!

Click here to test your vocabulary.

We have also been investigating what can cause changes in ecosystems and these changes can affect the organisms that live there. Click here for a short review of changes in ecosystems and click here for vocabulary work.

Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Word Work Feb. 01 - 05

This week's word sort involves the /ow/ sound (as in plow and couch). We are trying to determine if there are any predictable spelling patterns to help us determine when to use "ow" and when to use "ou." We also have several oddball words that do not fit the sound and spelling patterns.

ou
sound, cloud, found, ground, pound, shout, count, mouth, south, couch, scout

ow
brown, clown, growl, howl, owl, crown, drown, frown, gown, plow, town

oddball
tough, rough
grown


Several "noticings" from 2/02/10:
~All of the words that use the "ow" spelling pattern seem to end in a single consonant.
In our list of words, these single consonants are: N and L.
~Most of the words that use the "ou" spelling end in double consonants, like "nd" and "th."

What do you notice?

Monday, January 25, 2010

Word Work Jan 25-29

This week's Word Work has a word sort that helps students compare and contrast two vowel sounds the broad -a (wa) sound and two different spellings of the /aw/ sound (al and ou).

wa
watch, wash, wand, wasp, swap, swat

al
small, almost, also, walk, tall, salt, calm, talk, stalk, bald, chalk, stall


ou
thought, bought, brought, fought, ought, cought

1/25 Introduced words by practicing reading each word aloud and discussing meanings. Students discovered that many of these words have more than one meaning and can be used as more than one part of speech. For example, watch can mean to look at something but it can also mean the watch that is worn on the wrist!



and

Sunday, January 24, 2010

Math



Last week we started studying Solids and Shapes. First we looked at solid figures. These are 3-dimensional (3-D) figures that have length, width and height. In other words, they take up space.
image from www.mathisfun.com


Some common solid figures are spheres, cones, cubes, pyramids, cylinders and rectangular prisms.

The students also discovered that shapes can be used to describe some of the characteristics of some solid figures. For example, we learned that a rectangular prism has faces that are in the shapes of rectangles and squares. We learned that the flat surfaces of solid figures are called faces. When two faces meet they form a corner know
n as an edge. And th
e point where three or more edges meet is called a vertex.





image from www.eduplace.com








We also investigated polygons.


Polygons are 2 dimensional figures that are made up of just line segments and are also closed.


This is a polygon, it is made of only line segments

and is a closed figure.






This is not a polygon. It is made up of both line segments

and a curved piece.









This is not a polygon. Even though it is made of only line segments, it is not a closed figure.

My apologies

Sorry it has been so long since I posted any new materials. I can't believe how fast time goes by. I will try to post more often during my last two weeks of student teaching at Fortes.
Mrs. Bomster

Sunday, December 20, 2009

'twas the week before Winter break

It has been a busy couple of weeks in room 212!

writing
Students have been working on writing their "How to" passages. Each student chose an activity that they felt comfortable explaining to others. Some examples of their activities include: how to clean the house, how to draw flowers, how to play football, how to cook a hotdog and how to decorate the house for a party!! Next they spent time thinking and writing about the steps of their activities using transitional words (first, next, second, lastly, finally). The class also learned about writing a simple introduction and ending for their passages. Everyone had "published" their piece by Friday, Dec. 18!! You might want to ask your student what they wrote about.

reading comprehension
In Reading Success, our comprehension strategies/tools program, we have been practicing how to use several techniques to help build understanding and memory of reading selections. These strategies have included: a) Designing questions that can be answered by the passage being read. For example, when we read about woodwind instruments, students asked questions like~What are woodwinds made of? What are two examples of woodwind instruments? What does the word "wind" mean? b) Recognizing details in the readings. As students read, they are asked to think about what particular words help describe what is happening. By using these details, students can paint a more complete picture in their minds that will help them to understand and remember the main ideas more easily. c) Recognizing what a passage is "mostly about." When reading about percussion instruments, students identified words and phrases that described and explained percussion instruments. On Thursday and Friday we had the opportunity to practice these skills while reading The Wild Christmas Reindeer by Jan Brett. You could ask your child to tell you the story.

math
We finished up Topics 5 and 6. These chapters had students exploring different pieces of multiplication. We spent time looking at multiplication as repeated addition, multiplication facts for zero through ten, and strategies for multiplying. We also worked on many word problems. The class took a test on Thursday and we reviewed challenging areas on Friday.