Field Trip Scheduled for After Spring Break

As part of March is Reading Month, 7th grade students came to our classroom to read.  They had prepared questions and discussion topics.

Hello, I hope you enjoyed the spring weather this past weekend, looks like we are in for a rainy week.

AAPS Climate Survey
Ann Arbor Public Schools would like all the parents at Ann Arbor STEAM and across the district to fill out a survey regarding our school's climate. More information and the survey itself can be found here.

STEAM EXPO
STEAM Expo night is scheduled for this Thursday, March 31st from 5:30 - 7:00 PM. A photo with more information can be found at the bottom of this post. A video with more information was in last week's post.

Used Book Sale
The first annual used book sale will be held during the STEAM EXPO.  All items sell for one quarter!

Field Trip
Kindergarten is planning a field trip to the Matthaei Botanical Gardens as culmination of our current unit on living things.  We are scheduling the trip for April 14th from 9 AM to 1 PM.  We will take a bus to the gardens and have a special class taught by the students who work there.  I definitely need parent chaperones, so if you are interested in chaperoning please email me.  Field trip permission slips went home last Thursday.  Most of you sent the permission slips back already.  I know the long weekend was not the best time to send them home, if yours is misplaced, it is no problem, I will send home an additional copies as needed.

Curriculum Overview
Science - In our current Project Based Learning unit we are studying the needs of plants and animals and how plants and animals adapt to, and change their environment to meet those needs.  This week we are preparing for EXPO, reviewing what we have learned, and discussing how humans are animals too.

Math - Students are graphing the data from our PBL plant experiment.  We will also construct 3D shapes using clay and toothpicks.

Literacy - We continue to look at the features of nonfiction texts as we study the needs of living things for our Project Based Learning unit.  Students are learning how to use an index, table of contents, and how to understand captions and sidebars.

Writing - Students are recording their observations of our plant experiment in a journal that tracks changes in the plants over time.

Word Study - We are focused on the words that we need for our current PBL unit: observation, survive, plant, inch, stem, leaf, roots, control group, variable.  And for our study of animals: wild, domestic, mammal, amphibian, insect, carnivore, herbivore, and omnivore.

What Plants Need To Survive

Students are recording their observations of our plant experiment in a journal to track changes in the plants over time.
This student wrote "The plants look like they have a white flower.  And the flower looks closed."

STEAM EXPO Time
Our next STEAM Expo night is scheduled for Thursday, March 31st from 5:30 - 7:00 PM.  Here is a video with even more information.

Home Reading Book Bags
Sorry it took me so long to return those book bags last week.  Thanks for reading, sorry I slowed you down last week.

No School This Friday
There is no school this Friday, March 25th.

Letter Writing Paper
You may have noticed students have been writing personal letters to their friends, siblings, and to you!  Here is the paper that I use in Room K-3 to help facilitate this letter writing.  I encourage you to have your child use it at home to write to grandparents, neighbors, favorite aunts and uncles, etc.  Kids love mailing a letter in a mailbox.

Curriculum Overview
Science - In our current Project Based Learning unit we are studying the needs of plants and animals and how plants and animals adapt to and change their environment to meet those needs.  This week we are focusing on how animals change the environment to meet their needs: beavers fell trees to make a lodge for shelter, squirrels dig holes in the ground to store nuts, ants dig tunnels for shelter.

Math - Students are graphing the data from our PBL plant experiment.  We also studied pictographs and line graphs closely.  This week will review bar graphs as well as addition and subtraction.

Literacy - We continue to look at the features of nonfiction texts as we study the needs of living things for our Project Based Learning unit.  Students are learning how to use an index, table of contents, and how to understand captions and sidebars.

Writing - Students are recording their observations of our plant experiment in a journal that tracks changes in the plants over time.

Word Study - We are focused on the words that we need for our current PBL unit: observation, survive, plant, inch, stem, leaf, roots, control group, variable.  And for our study of animals: wild, domestic, mammal, amphibian, insect, carnivore, herbivore, and omnivore.

Students are tracking the height of the plants in our experiment designed to prove that plants need light, water, and air to survive.  This is the no light group.

Plants!

Students potted plants in preparation for an experiment designed to prove that plants need light, water, and air to live.

STEAM EXPO
It’s been on the school calendar for a while but I want to make sure everyone knows that our next STEAM Expo night is scheduled for Thursday, March 31st!

Report Cards on Tuesday
Report Cards will go home this Tuesday the 15th!  Please send the empty manila envelope back to school on Wednesday.

Curriculum Overview
Science - For our current Project Based Learning unit we are studying the needs of plants and animals and how plants and animals adapt to and change their environment to meet those needs.  Last week we began an experiment to show that plants need light, water, and air to survive.  This week we will be checking in on the plants and recording our observations of how they are reacting.

Math - This week we will be studying graphs and looking at how to graph the data from our PBL plant experiment.

Literacy - We continue to look at the features of nonfiction texts as we study the needs of living things for our Project Based Learning unit.  As I wrote last week, I highly recommend going to the library and checking out some non-fiction books--so often we read fiction books at home and it is good to give students a varied experience.  Find a topic that interests your child and use the table of contents and index to read up and learn.

Writing - Students are recording their observations of our plant experiment in a journal that tracks changes in the plants over time.

Word Study - We are focused on the words that we need for our current PBL unit: observation, survive, plant, inch, stem, leaf, roots, control group, variable.  And for our study of animals: wild, domestic, mammal, amphibian, insect, carnivore, herbivore, and omnivore.

Ants!

As part of our study of the needs of living things our class has begun observing live ants in the classroom!

Here is the update for the week:

Postponed - A2STEAM Used Book Sale and Heritage Festival
The used book sale I wrote about last week has been postponed a couple of weeks.  The book sale will now be held on the same night as out STEAM Expo, March 31st.  The Heritage Festival that was supposed to be held on March 12th has also been postponed.  A new date for the Heritage Festival is in the works but has yet to be confirmed.

Curriculum Overview
Science - For our current Project Based Learning unit we are studying the needs of plants and animals and how plants and animals adapt to, and change their environment to meet those needs.  We have studied the parts of plants (stem, leaves, roots, and flower).  Last week we explored the specific function of each of the plant parts.  This week we are starting an experiment to show that plants need water, light, and air to survive.  We are also beginning to study the needs of animals, and how different animals are categorized and classified.

Math - This week we will study skip counting, how it relates to multiplication, and add that that to our understand of different types of computation--last week we studied subtraction and reviewed addition.

Literacy - We continue to look at the features of nonfiction texts as we study the needs of living things for our Project Based Learning unit.  I highly recommend going to the library and checking out some non-fiction books--so often we read fiction books at home and it is good to give students a varied experience.  Find a topic that interests your child and use the table of contents and index to read up and learn.

Writing - This week students are attempting to stretch our their writing and ideas into a longer narrative with multiple parts.

Word Study - Identifying the vowel sounds found in simple words.  We will compare the short o and short u sounds, as well as bringing in short i.