Two four day weeks in a row

Hello,

I wanted to remind you that Friday is a professional development day for teachers. Students will not have school while teachers are developing. Monday is a holiday, Columbus Day.  No school on Monday either.

We estimated inches and feet in math today.  Students were coming up with strategies that were more accurate than guessing. We made lines of chalk on the playground and then came inside to work on the shorter distances. There is some estimation homework tonight.  Multiplication is on the horizon.

We finished up our geography picture dictionaries.  Island making starts on Thursday.  A note went home that I'll cut and paste below:


Dear Parents,

We will be making islands in class this week to show off our knowledge of landforms.  I am hoping that some of you will be able to donate your time and effort (and some household supplies) to provide our class with the necessary playdough.  I am providing you with two different recipes.  They both have their merits.  Thank you for providing our class with a batch or two.  Don’t worry about adding color.  We will be painting our finished products. 

You may send your dough to school in Ziploc bags starting on Tuesday.  We will begin our island making on Thursday.

Thanks in advance.  I know it is a bit of a pain.  I’ll be making some too. 

Mr. Shea

 

Traditional Play Dough Recipe

Ingredients:
2 cups of baking soda
1 and a half cups of water
1 cup of corn starch
Directions:

Mix all ingredients together and boil over medium heat. Once doughy, remove from heat.  Takes about ten minutes.

Cream of Tartar Play Dough Recipe

Ingredients:
2 cups of plain flour
2 cups of colored water
1 Tbsp. of cooking oil
1 tsp. cream of tartar
1 cup of salt
Directions:

Place all of the ingredients in a medium size or large pan. Cook slowly on medium-high and stir it until the play dough thickens.  This recipe takes less than 10 minutes.

Mr. Weafer was nice enough to bring in his slide projector.  We looked at many examples of erosion from Death Valley National Park, Arches NP, Bryce Canyon NP, Grand Canyon NP, Yosemite NP, and Antelope Canyon, among others.  I tried to skip many of the stories that the pictures remind me of, but I failed a couple of times.

Book orders came in today.  We'll get another round of flyers out tomorrow. You can always order online at scholastic.com/readingclub using class code J36TM.  I generally order every two weeks. The next order will go out a week from Sunday.  I have received a class listening center with eight headphones that I was able to get using book order points from this year and last. Thanks for supporting your child's reading habit and our class library.

Have a great night.  Homework club tomorrow.

Mr. Shea