"Photosynthesis" Science Song!

What We're Learning this Week (August 27 - 31, 2012)

In Math on Monday, we again worked with rounding. We played card games with a partner, similar to the game of "War", requiring us to round to the nearest thousand, ten thousand and hundred thousand. Before we could win the round and collect all of the cards, we had to explain to our partners how we rounded and they had to agree, then we compared numbers. The person with the larger rounded number won the round. It was a lot of fun and didn't seem like Math work at all!

In Science, we began our 2nd chapter over Life Cycles. Today we read and discussed heredity, traits, and genes and how they can be similar or different from person to person, even in the same family.  

On Tuesday, in Math we practiced writing numbers in various different forms: Base-Ten Numeral, Number Name, and Expanded Form. We worked with partners and our cards again to help us practice correctly writing numbers in all three ways. 

In Science, we continued our study of heredity, traits, and genes. We took an "Inventory of Our Traits", including 12 specific traits like being left or right handed, being able to roll your tongue, having hitch hiker's thumb, having a widow's peak, or being color blind. Once we gathered all of our data, we did a class comparision and graphed our results. We were able to easily see the dominant versus recessive genes present within our classes. 

On Wednesday in Science we learned a new song, "Photosynthesis", to go along with our new lesson and new vocabulary words: life cycle and photosynthesis! (See the above post!)

On Thursday in Math, we continued to work with adding whole numbers, up into the thousands and ten thousands place to help us become more proficient and make less "silly" mistakes when adding, such as not carrying or regrouping. 

In Science, we further discussed photosynthesis and the 5 components that are neccessary in order for photosynthesis to take place in a plant. We also created diagrams of "The Photosynthesis Process" to put into our Science Notebooks. Check out some of our WONDERFUL diagrams!

On Friday in Math we took our weekly quiz. This week, Mrs. Elliott's class outscored Ms. Deaton's class by a score of 92% to 90%. No matter the winner this week, Mrs. Elliott is VERY pleased with those scores. 

 In Science, we continued our discussion of plants, their life cycle and photosynthesis. We got to "disect" lima beans and identify their seed coat, the root and leaf inside, the embryo and their food storage.

"Cells From Other Cells" Science Song!

Although we didn't go into detail about all of the organelles mentioned in this song, we did discuss many! Go ahead, quiz your kid! (It's a good review for our test on Friday) They should be able to tell you about the cell membrane, cytoplasm, nucleus, mitochondria and vacuole in both the plant and animal cell and about the cell wall and chloroplast in the plant cell! :)

What We're Learning this Week (August 20-24, 2012)

In Math on Monday, we continued to review how to round numbers to a specific place value. We practiced underlining the digit we were to round to, looking "next door" at the number to the immediate right and deciding if it was a "High 5!" or a "Low 4!" to help us round. In Science we began our third and final lesson of this chapter, discussing how animals are classified. We also learned a new song called "Spineless" to help us remember the difference in the two major classifications of animals: vertebrates and invertebrates! (See the post below!)

On Tuesday in Math, we continued our work with rounding. We practiced rounding numbers to the nearest tens, hundreds, thousands and ten-thousands. Slowly, but surely, we are getting better at rounding numbers. In Science, we continued our classification of animals. We investigated how the sub-categories of animals were broken down. Vertebrates include mammals, birds, fish, reptiles, and amphibians, while invertebrates include cnidarians (like jelly fish), porifera (like sea sponges), annelida (worms), mollusks (like clams and snails), echinoderms (like starfish), and last but not least arthropods (like spiders and crabs). And of course we jammed our to our newest Science song, "Spineless"! Also, Mrs. Elliott added the cell song, "Cells From Other Cells" that we like to sing so much as well to our blog for easy access! (See the above post!)

On Wednesday in Math, we again practiced rounding by playing a game of "I Have, Who Has" requiring students to actively participate in order to keep the game running, as well as round whole numbers to specific place values. In Science, we began by completing a Vertebrate & Invertebrate Sorting activity, where we had to organize animals according to major group, subgroup, names and pictures. 

Then, we began working on our Animal Matchbooks, where we had to identify the different groups of vertebrates and invertebrates and give examples of each group, along with an illustration. 

"Spineless" Science Song!