2/3 Week 10 News

Literatura

This week we prepared to read Criaturas de la ciudad. Our objectives were:

• understand the difference between gue and gui and review when there is a soft g vs hard g
• review antonyms and synonyms
• to use the comprehension skill Classify and Categorize as we read El niño que no creia en la primavera a second time
• understand and use commas in a series

Matemáticas

This week we worked with multiplication. Our objectives were:

• use multiplication properties
• practice multiplication facts of 6

We also began taking our fast facts multiplication quizzes this week. Students have been doing a great job working on both accuracy and speed!

History & Geography

Social studies with Ms. Marci.
This week we learned about the daily life in Rome. We particularly focused on the contrasting differences between patricians and plebeians, and how this inequity caused unrest and ultimately  led to the spectacles of the Coliseum and Circus Maximus.  We enjoyed a “Roman dinner party” on Thursday and worked on our Roman lapbooks  throughout the week.

Our objectives were to:
•  Identify some of the contributions from ancient Roman civilization, and describe how they have influenced the present
•  explain that women did not have as many rights as men in Roman society
•  describe the everyday life of the ancient Romans
•  compare and contrast the three categories of people in ancient Rome colon patricians, plebeians, and slaves
•  review why ancient Rome was considered a civilization.

Social Studies with Ms. Laura:

We continued our study of Chinese calligraphy by practicing characters.  Miria helped us write the characters representing the numbers the numbers 1 through 10.  Alora brought her Buddha Board, purchased on our field trip to Lan Su Chinese Gardens last year.  She generously demonstrated and shared the use of the board with the class.  It was great fun!  Thanks Miria and Alora!  And Kate brought us her dad’s two authentic Chinese robes, and members of our class modeled them!  Thanks Kate and Joe! We discuss some of China’s many inventions, including kites, umbrellas, paper, woodblock printing, gunpowder, fireworks and porcelain.  We tried some block printing.

Science

On Monday we took our animal classification assessment, the class did a great job of demonstrating how much they have learned about this subject.  We celebrated the end of our domain with popcorn and a film on baby animals in the forest.  Everyone has done a great job of finishing up their informational paragraphs and getting their animal projects in.  We will be presenting their projects and interesting facts throughout the next couple of weeks.
Schedule for presentations:
Thurs. Nov. 9, 2:30 – 3:05 pm – Ben, Emilie, Dean, Marisol, Kate, Pierce
Thurs. Nov. 15, 2:30 – 3:05 pm – Naomi, Natalie, Alora, Luke
Fri. Nov. 16, 2:00 – 3:05 pm – Ayden, Lucas, Gaby, Adi

English Word Work

Spelling and grammar:
Students will not be tested on their new sorts until next Friday the 16th. Spelling homework will be due at that time as well.  In grammar this week we reviewed synonyms and homonyms.

In honor of Veteran’s Day, we had two guest veterans from the VFW come speak to the students on Tuesday.  The students did a wonderful job of listening and asking thoughtful questions.

Specialists

Art with Ms. Kelly: 

The students in all grades have been learning about Pablo Picasso this month in Art. We read a short book about this famous artist, and also looked at several examples of his artwork. Some of the art vocabulary words the students are learning about and/or reviewing this month are Cubism, Realistic, Abstract, and Collage.

We’ve been focusing on Picasso’s use of the guitar and violin as a theme in his artwork. He created a variety of drawings, paintings, collages and sculptures depicting these stringed instruments, some of which are recognizable and some are not. The students then made their own version of a cubistic guitar using the collage technique. The kindergarten and first graders worked really hard on this challenging project!

The students learned how to draw a simple guitar shape by observing a real guitar, and using basic shapes. The following week they cut the guitar drawing into shapes and rearranged it on a background of a variety of papers. It was fun to look at the wonderful compositions (arrangement of shapes) when we displayed the artwork on the whiteboard! The 2nd and 3rd Grade class artwork is on the bulletin board at school. I think Picasso would have loved seeing all the students’ creative, abstract art!

It was great having Miss Erin teach the students about guitar music while we were working on guitar art! We’ll be doing one more Picasso art project at the end of the month.