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.