Hello everyone.

This week I revisited a topic we had discussed on several occasions. We looked at the = sign. We discussed how it is not simply a symbol that tells us where the answer goes, but rather is more like a balance. I used a teeter-totter analogy.

Revisiting concepts is important in math. Too often a topic is covered, and then we simply move on. I wrote on the board:

I took a poll for the answer, and it was overwhelmingly 12. I asked what happened to the 3? That was the lead-in to our conversation. We looked at several more simpler examples, talked. Did more challenges. Talked. Eventually we worked up to more challenging questions.

The children really enjoyed the challenges. We'll step back a bit, combine these ideas into word problems and make sure we're really understanding the questions. These algebraic/equation-balancing questions were a lot of fun, and some of the kids saw that we had already been doing them in our word problems. They were excited to see the links and relationships.

In science we continued with our examination of rocks and minerals by exploring the difference between the two. We did an activity where I gave them a variety of descriptions (contains fossils, has a crystalline form) and they had to make an educated guess about whether it was a feature of a rock or a mineral. They did this in small groups, sharing their background knowledge and making inferences and guesses. We then came back together and figured it out together. Once we had our information correctly assembled, we created a chart that we can use as we go forward in our work.

This coming week we will take a large group of rock samples and begin looking at how we could categorize them. We'll build a dichotomous tree, like the following image.

This taxonomic activity will let the kids handle and closely examine a large number of rocks and get them thinking about how scientists do this type of work, what characteristics they could be looking for, and how they can do it with their own background knowledge and observation skills.

I also asked for them to start bringing in glass jars. I hope to make crystals. It is unlikely to happen this coming week, but if you have any extra jam, pickle, etc. jars, please send them in.

In literacy we worked together with Mrs. Wilson's class on a writing prompt of a Norman Rockwell painting.

We discussed what we thought was going on in the picture. We then had to write a short story, using descriptive language, similes, metaphors. Our goal was to create an interesting story that hooked our reader.

In social studies, your children should have brought home a study guide this week for a test on Peru on Monday with Mrs. Wilson. Please help them to study for this test.