Scratching

In the last few weeks, the students have been learning about the missions and the Spanish colonial period with Mr. Pratt. One of the things they did in room 18 was to do pictures of some of the particular missions. Here are a couple particularly great ones

Today was a pretty ordinary Wednesday. We checked, corrected, and discussed out homework. We did a little more on the second Literacy Periodic Assessment. We went to Tech Center where Ms. Richard had them work on their “Vacation” podcast project.

In Science, the students reviewed the idea of using properties such as color, transparency, and texture to help identify minerals. They agreed that since so many minerals looked similar, other tests would be helpful. So we talked about hardness as a property and the students learned about the scratch test. They then took Monday’s mystery rocks and scratched them with fingernails, cooper pennies, and steel paperclips. This helped them to figure out which one was quartz, which was calcite, which was fluorite, and which was gypsum. They had a pretty good time doing it.

In the afternoon, we corrected the math test and listened to James and the Giant Peach. Our students went to Mrs. Choi for Art while Mrs. Cha’s class came here for music. In math, we’re discussing addition of fractions with like denominators – an easy concept for most of them.

Homework:  (1) Write spelling words 11-15 five times each in cursive. Also write a sentence for each word. (2) Do the spelling scramble. (3) Do “Determining Cause and Effect” worksheet. (4) Do “Making Inference” worksheet. (5) Do “Like Denominators,” pages 253-255 in the math book. (6) Do “Comparing Fractions 3” practice page.