This week has been a whirlwind of measuring, typing, singing, and creating waves (sound waves, that is!)
In Math, we continued our unit on measurement. From centimeters to meters, we also talked about perimeter and area. An easy way to remember the difference between perimeter and area is to think that the perimeter is the fence, and the area is the house inside. Temescalians determined that yard sticks are 36 inches while meter sticks are 39 inches. They also noted that meter sticks are 100 centimeters. Using this knowledge they went about measuring different things in the classroom. Handy tips for measuring things: (1) Make sure you are measuring in the correct unit (2) Line up the 0 with the end of the item you are trying to measure. We noticed that some rulers start their 0 at the end of the ruler while others start a little bit in. Just like the adage: “Measure twice, cut once” we need to double check our measurements before we move on and act upon them. (3) Line your ruler up with a straight edge if there is one available to help you keep your measurement on track. (4) If you are measuring something that is longer than your ruler, use your hand, or a friend’s hand, to keep track of where one length ended and the next should begin.
We continued typing up our research writing. Many of us are finishing up and starting to put our books together. The Temescalians have been working so hard to finish this project, and we cannot wait to invite grown ups in on June 6 to celebrate with us!
With the opening of the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art coming soon, Julianne has led the kids in a study of the architecture and pieces that are featured and the Temescalians created their own models of the SF MOMA. These intricate models are pieces of art in and of themselves!
We read another news article with Rebecca in Information Literacy and tried to pull out the main idea and supporting details of an article about a solar powered airplane. When asked why the upside down “candy corn” structure helps them to pull out the main idea of the article, one Temescalian answered, “It’s sort of like 20 questions. It helps you narrow things down.” Wow! Talk about insight! Some kids made connections with the article and other aviators like Amelia Earhart. These Temescalians are always thinking!
Our grammar lesson was about possessive nouns. “What does possessive mean?” Possessive means it belongs to. “When do you use an apostrophe?” You use an apostrophe when you combine words together and when you’re trying to say that it belongs to something/someone. We practiced and possessive plural nouns were a bit tricky. We needed to first turn that word into a plural noun before we added an apostrophe at the end of the word. For example, baby -> babies -> babies’ .
We celebrated a birthday! It was lovely to see this Temescalian’s progression through the years. Come in and see a few of the pictures of her as a younger child!
Our Spring Sing was a huge success! Thank you so much for joining us on Thursday evening! The Temescalians’ voices soared as they sang “La Musica” and they let their attitude hang out in “Boom Chicka Boom”.
As we collected the dried calendula petals, we noticed that there were little caterpillars that looked like dried calendula seeds. Where there are caterpillars, there are cocoons! We found two, and we noticed one had emerged and was still in the jar!
We enjoy Family Reading on Fridays with grown ups!
We finished the week with a lesson in sound waves! We saw from a demonstration that when an amplifier speaker is filled with water, you can see the vibrations sound waves make. Sound waves are actually three dimensional and interact with everything as they leave their source. We had a quick lesson in different ways to think about sound waves: transverse (up and down like a water wave) or longitudinal (back and forth where they hit each other). They then tried to create their own transverse and longitudinal waves with slinkies. Ask your Temescalian to tell you more about transverse/longitudinal waves! We also posed a question to them: How do you think the ticking of an egg timer would sound in different mediums? Temescalians created different scenarios to test their ideas.
Finally, we wanted to acknowledge the ever so sweet Sweet Briar class for appreciating the faculty and teachers! Teacher Appreciation week may have been last week, but they persevered and made certificates featuring our favorite animals, color, and fancy/plain writing; pumpkin muffins and buttons! We definitely felt appreciated, Sweet Briar! Thank you!
Upcoming Events
May
30 – Memorial Day (No School)
June
2 – Walkathon
3 – Beach Day (please turn in permission slips!)
4 – Class Camp Out in Tilden Park (sign ups for food/etc. on the wiki. Click on the button on the upper right of the page.)
6 – Celebration of Learning (8:45-10:15am. Look for more details to come!)
9 – Last Day of School!
