Dominoes

We will be using dominoes to help us focus on our math facts for the next few weeks.  Today Ainsley and JuliEva taught us how to play a dominoes game.

We love dominoes!

Space Schema

During the immersion phase of our space inquiry, it is important to think about our schema, or what we think we know.

After brainstorming our schema together, we went off and recorded our personal space schema on a piece of paper.

Here is a video of our space schema:

We ended with an introduction to the Solar System.  Here is an amazing video:

We're off to a good start!

Fiction or Nonfiction?

We are starting a nonfiction unit in Reading Workshop, which will pair nicely with the timing of our Space Inquiry.
We discussed the difference between fiction and nonfiction books and spent reading workshop collecting facts from these informational texts.

Such serious workers!

STEAM Bins

I found these great STEM bins on Teachers Pay Teachers.  They are a great way to work on collaboration skills as well as creative problem solving skills.

STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics.

I introduced these bins by reading the book The Most Magnificent Thing.

If you want to hear the book again, you can click on the video below.



Then we went off in partnerships to create our own magnificent things!

Watch this video to see our STEM experience!

Measuring with Popsicle Sticks

In Math Workshop we are learning about nonstandard measurement and using popsicle sticks to measure length.  We learned that when we measure, the units we measure with shouldn't have any gaps and they should be as straight as possible.  Mathematicians are very careful and double-check their work to make sure it's accurate.

Here we are working with our partners, measuring like mathematicians!

We record our estimates in our booklets before we measure.  Then, we compare our estimates with the actual measurements to see if we had a reasonable estimate.

Wampanoag History

The Wampanoags were an important part in the history of the Pilgrims and their survival.
We added a map of the Wampanoag homesite to our Think Books.

We also learned about Wampanoag life.


We even got to see a Wetu being constructed!

Pilgrim History

After viewing the painting of the Mayflower sent through Google Classroom, we had lots of noticings and lots of questions.

We explored many resources to find out more information about the Pilgrims and their voyage on the Mayflower.

Scholastic is a great source for research on the First Thanksgiving! (Click on these words to explore those resources.)
We especially liked this video about Pilgrim life that went right along with our Scholastic News homework this week.


We shared our learning with each other...

...and added a "cutaway" picture of the Mayflower to our Think Books for further investigation!

We also used Google Earth to find the place where the Pilgrims landed in Massachusetts!