October 5th to October 9th

After a week away in Spain, it was great to have Ms. Reschke back in class this week.  The students began the week exploring pomegranates, a fruit that originates in Spain!  The students had a fantastic time opening, touching and tasting the pomegranates.  We worked on using our 5 senses as we explored the pomegranates, adding our ideas to a writing planner that will help us write descriptive paragraphs next week.

The students have been very excited by our unit on plants.  The students planted a variety of seeds including radishes, carrots and celery.  We are recording our observations on the growth of our seeds each day.  We have been reading a variety of fiction and non-fiction books about plants, learning about the different parts of the plants and their function.  We are also testing to see what happens when you open up a pumpkin and add soil and water.  Will the seeds from the pumpkin grow?  Can we grow a pumpkin in a pumpkin?  Some students worried that with so many seeds, there would be too much competition for space, light and nutrients.  Others felt that the pumpkin could crack from the pressure of so many roots growing.  It will be interesting to see what happens over the next few weeks.

As a connection with our plant unit, we created pumpkins using ink pens and zentangle patterns.  Have your child explain to you what a zentangle pattern is.

In math, we have continued our work on Patterns and Relations.  The home journal this week shows some of the work that we have been doing.  The students should be able to determine a pattern rule, create a chart tp record and reveal the pattern and describe in their own words how the pattern grows.