Science and Social Studies

We have been working hard in science and social studies since we came back from the winter holiday break!  We started to learn about the character traits of leaders by reading books, both whole class and in our guided reading groups,  on a number of different leaders from throughout history. These leaders included Martin Luther King, Jr., Ruby Bridges, Eleanor Roosevelt, Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, Jackie Robinson, Pee Wee Reese, Thurgood Marshall, and Garrett Morgan. After we read each book, we brainstormed a list of character traits that described each leader. Just as we predicted, many of the leaders had character traits in common with one another!

Our next step is going to involve identifying leaders in our own school and town community. We are going to come up with a list of questions we would like to ask these leaders about their role in our community and "interview" them via email. Our final project will include creating a book that uses informative writing to teach others about the leaders in our school and community. Stay tuned for more information about these great leaders!

On this coming Tuesday we will be starting our weather unit in science! Our first goal will be to identify the different types of precipitation. We will be writing opinion essays about whether we think precipitation harms or helps the environment using what we have learned. During our weather unit we will be learning about what a meteorologist does and we'll even get the chance to try our hand at being meteorologists ourselves when we create weather tools that we will use to predict the local weather! Finally, we will be researching dangerous types of weather and using what we learn to write informative essays. We will be needing various supplies to make our weather tools and volunteers to come in and help us make them. Be on the lookout for that information in the next few weeks!

One Word

Instead of writing New Year's Resolutions, each student in our class chose a word to guide our work for the second half of the school year. Students chose words like focus, organized, kindness, respect, stamina, and cooperation-among others. After we chose our words, we shared them with one another. Then we made One Word Posters that we are going to hang up in our classroom to serve as a reminder for the rest of the school year!