Mystery Doug Art Project

 Last week we wondered about the bones in our bodies.

At the end of that week's Mystery Doug he taught us about an art project, so we decided to try it!

We followed directions to create a drawing of our hand and wrist bones.

Then we used oil to paint and fill in the bones.

Look how great they turned out!

Wonder Wednesday!

 This week our wonder was about our skeletons.

Each week we record our thinking in our Think Books. We shared our thinking with partners.

Many of us predicted that our bodies would be like jelly if we had no bones. We also learned a lot about our bodies and how they can move.

We are looking forward to doing a project about our bones on Friday!

Happy Wonder Wednesday!

Owl Inquiry Day!

We have had lots of wonders about owls, porcupines, mice, and owl pellets as we read aloud Poppy, our chapter book by Avi.

Since we had so many wonders and questions, we had an Owl Inquiry Day!

Room 408 loves Research Workshop! We started by brainstorming lingering questions we had about owls:

We reviewed all our sources and started our research by studying photos, reading books, or researching on our ipads on PebbleGo and Epic.

We also explored an owl skull...

...and weighed owl pellets on a balance.

We made connections and collaborated about our learning.

Of course, we always recorded our new learning!

We gathered together to share our learning and answer our questions.

Finally, the time came that we have all been waiting for: dissecting owl pellets! We found it morbidly fascinating.

We found lots of cool bones inside, along with a *lot* of fur.

When we found a bone, we used a diagram to help us identify what kind of bone it was and what kind of animal it came from:

The owl inquiry has been one of our favorite days, so far!🦉

Estimating & Measuring

During Math Workshop, we have been working on measuring with nonstandard objects.  

We measured length with objects like popsicle sticks...

...and we measured the weight of our owl pellets with objects like cubes...

...and now we are even coming up with things to measure on our own!

Before we measure, we always try to estimate!

This week we read the book How Big is a Foot? by Rolf Myller.  The story was about a King who has a special bed made for his Queen's birthday.  The King measured out how tall and wide he needed the bed by using his feet.  By the time the carpenter's tiny apprentice made the bed, measuring with his tiny feet, the bed did not fit the Queen!

We found out how many teacher steps it took to measure a jumprope:

We had a few students estimate and measure the jumprope with their feet, and then we all made estimates for how many of our footsteps it would take to measure the jumprope.

Finally, we checked our estimates by actually measuring the jumprope with our footsteps.

When we had trouble balancing, we always had a friend nearby to help!

We had some great and reasonable estimates!