Trying to finish up

This is how the week before a long break always ends up...spending the last couple of days tying up loose ends so that we aren't left in the middle of projects when we head out for Spring Break.

Wednesday:
In Math Workshop, we learned about symmetry by reading, Seeing Symmetry and then completed some activities followed by using symmetry to create SuperHero Masks! However, to personalize learning, we also made hair bows and sunglasses and antennae... :) Then, after Gym, lunch and recess, in The Fourteenth Goldfish, we actually had 2 really great impromptu learning moments. This book has a lot to do with Science so they were talking about Jonas Salk, the scientist that discovered the vaccine for Polio. Well, my grandfather was the last person to die in Ohio of Polio. So we looked up the newspaper article and read about it! (It was when my dad was 10 so I didn't know him.) Then, they were talking about how Scientists never give up and how Science is like a puzzle which led us to look at famous failures. We read independently, blogged and worked on our discussion post for the debate question in StoryWorks: Should gum be allowed in school? In Writer's Workshop, we continued revising, editing and completing our final copy of our narrative using dialogue. We concluded our day with Social Studies and a little on the fly project we began about our classroom becoming a "state."

Thursday:
Today was crazy. We had special at 10:00 and then the 5th grade musical performance at 10:50 and then they wanted me to read more from The Fourteenth Goldfish. While today's reading was good, nothing jumped out at us like yesterday! Then, we had lunch and outdoor recess and then we did our Math Workshop. It was pretty differentiated with kiddos in 3 different groups based on their needs, but worked with classifying shaped based on their properties, name symmetry and began designing a geometrical town. At 2:00, the OSU researcher came in and gave the pre-test over fossils and then we worked on finishing up our reading and writing work from the previous days'.