Target

WEEK OF MAY 16, 2011

WOW!  We can not believe the end of the year is already here! Another great year has flown by.

This will be our last week of Target sessions.  We are looking forward to our sharky celebration with 5th and our Seussy celebration with 1st.  With our second and third graders we will take a trip around the world (trailers) as we emerge ourselves into several civilizations with various activities and culinary delights.

We want to wish our 5th graders the best of luck as they begin their journey through middle school.  We wish everyone a fantastic summer vacation.  See you in August!

Fourth & Fifth Grade: Week of May 9, 2011

DISSECTION WEEK!

Please dress for dissection.  Old clothes, large t-shirt or cover-up shirt, closed-toed shoes.  Girls, rubber band to pull back your hair.  Optional: change of clothes.

  ........THE SHARKS ARE WAITING!!!!!.........

We would like to thank our many dissection parent volunteers.  We also would like to thank the Sope Creek Foundation for sponsoring our shark specimens. We could not offer this wonderful learning experience without this help.

Fourth Grade:  Hard to believe, but this week will be our last session due to Career Day next Tuesday.   We will have our sharky celebration in the afternoon and watch Shark Tale from a new knowledgeable perspective.

Fifth Grade: We will test our shark knowledge with Shark Jeopardy and Cash Cab.

Second &Third Grade: Week of May 9,2011

Students were fantastic archaeologists last week at our BIG DIG!!!

This week we will not meet with Second Graders on Friday due to Field Day. We will see them next Friday 5/20 for our final celebration.

Third Grade will work on finalizing their research civilization and sharing their discoveries with their classmates. Next week 5/19 we will have our "round the trailers" exploration of ancient civilizations and our final celebration. Please note: We are aware that third grade is having pajama day in the annex on 5/19, however, we are asking that Target students do NOT wear pajamas, since we have several activities planned where pajamas and slippers would interfere.

 

First Grade: Week of May 9, 2011

It is really hard to believe we only have two more weeks with our first graders.

This week we started the day finishing some sharing from the past weeks.  Students shared their Horton 3 stories as well as their symbiotic animal creation with Thidwick.  We had several logic problems and a word boggler to stretch our analytical thinking skills.  Our focus story today was Bartholomew and the Oobleck. We brainstormed words associated with weather and discussed how weather affects our daily lives. Before we read the story, students responded to the expression "Be careful what you wish for!"  After reading the story, we exchanged personal experiences on the difficulties of saying your sorry and admitting something was your fault. We followed up our reading with a scientific investigation of the properties of matter.  We had our own sample of oobleck,and discovered it had some very unique characterisics that did not really make it a solid or a liquid.  We determined it was a non-Newtonian matter.  Students were able to make a text to text comparison of the story about Bartholomew and the Oobleck to the classic Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs.  We were able to finish our day with the video In Search of Dr. Seuss.

Fourth and Fifth Grades Week of May 2, 2011

This week we will have a short review before we take the shark anatomy test. All students must earn at least 85% on this test in order to be allowed to dissect next week. Thank you to all parents who volunteered to help with the dissection. It should be a fun learning experience for all involved. We look forward to seeing those volunteers at 8:00 a.m. on your designated day next week (Tuesday, 5/10 for 4th grade and Wednesday, 5/11 for 5th grade).

This week, in addition to a creative writing activity, a challenging math assignment involving percentages, and a video called "Ultimate Sharks," we gave our students the "big talk" about the dissection. The students were given the rules and expectations as well as their groups. Everyone seems to be anticipating this experience to be amazing!

Third and Second Grade: Week of May 2, 2011

THE BIG DIG!!!  Last week the students did a fantastic job working on creating their civilization and artifact.   Over the week (centuries), their civilization was lost.  This week an archaeological team will prepare the site, grid off the area, and carefully begin their excavation, methodicaly recording their findings.  The team will try to reconstruct the artifact, and then hypothesize about the lost civilization's culture. 

Third graders will also work on their research for their assigned civilization.

Second graders, due to Field Day next Friday (5/13), will only have one more Target session for our civilization celebration on 5/20. It is hard to believe we are so close to the end of the year.

First Grade: Week of May 2, 2011

Students spent the first part of the day publishing their final copy of Horton 3, and a logic problem and word plexor.

Our focused story was one of Dr.Seuss' lesser known tales about Thidwick the Big Hearted Moose.  Students brainstorm characteristics that a "big hearted" person would possess.  We discussed a text to text comparison of Thidwick's and Horton's characteristics.  We connected our reading on Thidwick and his "friends" to the scientific study of symbiotic relationships with the story Weird Friends.  We learned about 3 types of symbiotic relationships and compared them to Thidwick's relationship with his animal friends.   Students made antlers with their handprints and thumbprint animals "riding" on the antlers.  They then wrote a short description describing their animals symbiotic relationship with Thidwick.  We had time to end the day with the first part of a biographical video on Dr. Seuss and his famous works.