History & Geography
In our studies of Ancient Greece this week we learned about the great thinkers of Greece, Plato, Socrates, and Aristotle. We talked about Greek chorus and acted out some Aesop’s fables. The students made tragedy and comedy marks. On Friday we played jeopardy and reviewed for our assessment next week.
Our objectives:
• identify Socrates, Plato, and Aristotle as great philosophers of ancient Greece
• understand how ideas can spread through writing and teaching
• identify Alexander the Great
• indicate on a map that area Alexander the Great conquered
• listen to a variety of Aesop’s Fables
•act out fables as part of a Greek Chorus
Science
This week we took a pausing point and reviewed what we’ve learned so far about the interesting world of insects. We watched a film on Wednesday about insects and wrote more in our insect journals. On Friday we began learning about social insects, ants and termites.
Our objectives were to:
• explain that insects are the largest group of animals on Earth
• explain that there are many varieties of insects
• identify and describe three main body parts of insects: head, thorax, abdomen
• identify the placement and / or purpose of an insect’s body parts
• distinguish between social and solitary insects
• explain that most insects live solitary lives but some such as ants and termites, are social
• describe how all members of a social insect colony come from one queen
• describe the social behavior of ants and ant colonies
• describe the roles of worker ants, males, and queens
English Spelling and Writing
In our journals we used the idiom of the week, I stuck my foot in my mouth. The class worked on two sort activities this week to prepare for their final spelling test on Friday. Several students also took a Word Wall test this week. Our Word Wall words were: one, old, or, outside.
Green spelling sort
Blue spelling sort
La lectura
This week we read Todos Creyeron que lo habían visto.
Our weekly objectives were to:
- Understand the story vocabulary
- review asking questions during our first read
- during our second read use the comprehension skill making conclusions
- practice finding linking and helping verbs within sentences
Las matemáticas
This week we wrapped up our unit on Volume. Our weekly objectives were to:
- Practice reading the number of liters on a marked container
- apply knowledge to real world volume problems
- review for the test by playing snowball toss
- show what we know on the chapter test
Specialists:
Art with Ms. Kelly
The students did a wonderful job with 2 challenging art projects this month.
Art Project: Make a Winter Landscape with Animals, using collage technique
Book: “Over and Under the Snow” by Kate Messner, with art by Christopher Silas Neal
Goals:
- Observe illustrations in book, especially close-up and far away trees
- Learn about forest animals in winter
- Practice drawing a fox using geometrical shapes
- Cut out basic shapes to make a red fox, a mouse, and a deer
- Cut out shapes to make trees, and add texture with crayon
Art Project: Folk Art Flowers
Book: Art From Her Heart, Folk Artist Clementine Hunter by Kathy Whitehead
Goals:
- Learn about Clementine Hunter, an African American folk art painter
- Draw a bowl or vase with crayon, and add simple flower shapes to fill page
- Paint with tempera paint
I hope to display these beautiful flower paintings on the bulletin board in February!
Music with Ms. Erin
In January we learned about fast and slow tempos, speeding up and slowing down within a musical piece, reviewed forte and piano dynamics, and learned how to draw the treble and bass clefs. We also listened to music by composers Grieg, Beethoven, and Vivaldi.
In February we will be learning about the letter-name notes in the C major scale, and the names of the notes on the treble staff. We will learn how to draw the rests that correspond with our previously learned notes: whole note (4 beats), half note (2 beats), and quarter note (1 beat). We will be singing and playing notes while reading them on the staff.