Bate, Bate, Chocolate!

We did a couple particularly interesting things today. First, we revisited the "Mae Jemison: Space Scientist" story by making multi-flow maps of Ms. Jemison's life. The multi-flow map helps the students explore the concept of cause and effect. They had to think about what events allowed Mae to become the first African-American woman in space, and then what subsequent events happened because of this. This was hard for some of them. They wanted to pick anything from her life and make it a cause, instead of thinking what in particular motivated her to become an astronaut. Quite a number of students will need to finish this one as part of their homework tonight, but many used their time wisely and completed the assignment.

After recess we went to the auditorium and had music instruction with Mr. Richard Lawton. Most of the students knew Mr. Lawton from last year, and he was able to build on some of the skills he developed with them in third grade. They had a lot of fun developing their sense of rhythmic speech on an old Mexican chant, "Bate, bate, chocolate." They worked with him to write a 4 line song lyric: again, many will need to finish it at home, though this will not be due until Tuesday.

After recess we reviewed the science test and read a little more from the science book. They will have some follow-up on this tomorrow. We also discussed three strategies for finding an equivalent fraction: drawing a picture, using fraction cubes, and the standard algorithm (multiply or divide numerator and denominator by the same number). Although the last way is by far the fastest, the students need to know all three because the other two, particularly the drawing, actually demonstrates mastery of the concept.

Home Studies: (1) Complete the Open Court reading packet by tomorrow. (2) If necessary, finish the Jemison flow map by tomorrow. (3) Continue work on the math packet. Students should be finished with the second of third assignment here.

Since we have been giving time in the morning for reading and journals, this is not part of the homework tonight.