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.