Homework This Week

Dear Families,

For homework this week, students are working on making a presentation about the animal they just researched. Instructions came home with them today, along with their research from before to help them.

These presentations are now due next Monday, June 10th.

If your child has already finished their presentation, you can have him or her practice sharing it with an audience (especially projecting so that others can hear you!). Students should also continue to read for 30 minutes every day.

Also in folders today were two notices:

- We are looking for volunteers to help with a kite making project on June 20th.

- Field day is June 17th.

If you have any questions, please let me know.

The Flight of Our Butterflies

The Flight of Our Butterflies from Stephen MacLellan on Vimeo.

William Steig

We have read a whole bunch of books lately by a very fun author and illustrator, William Steig.

We had been reading fairy tales, including many versions of Cinderella, Rumplestilskin, and Little Red Riding Hood, when we read our first William Steig book, Shrek. We realized that many of his stories have similar themes as fairy tales.

One of our favorite things about William Steig is that he always chose amazing words. Shrek was not just ugly, he was repulsive. We like to ask each other, "What word would William Steig use?"

At the end of our author study unit, we made a video of what is similar about many of William Steig's books.


William Steig books from Stephen MacLellan on Vimeo.

Do you have a favorite William Steig book?

Butterflies!

We have been studying caterpillars and butterflies for the past few weeks. A butterfly is an insect. Like all insects, they have hard exoskeletons, 6 legs, and 3 main body segments.

Butterflies have a very specialized mouth. It is called a proboscis. Don't know how to say that word? Break it up into parts: pro   bos   cis   then blend it together. Try saying it three times fast!

Image source: Fir0002/Flagstaffotos, from Wikimedia Commons, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Australian_painted_lady_feeding_closeup.jpg

A proboscis is like a long, flexible tongue. The butterfly can curl it up close to its body when it isn't using it. But when a butterfly lands on a flower, it extends the long, thin proboscis and sucks up nectar from inside a flower. Bees drink up nectar the same way! Do you think butterflies are pollinators just like bees are?

We raised Painted Lady caterpillars. When we first got them, they were tiny larvae (caterpillars) only 1 centimeter long. They ate and ate, munching on their crushed-up leaf food. When they grew, they shed their skin, and emerged with a new, bigger skin. Eventually, they stuck to the roof of their containers, curled into a J shape, and made a chrysalis to protect them while they metamorphasized. In their chrysalis, they were the third phase in their life cycle. They were pupas.

Finally, they emerged from the chrysalis, dried their wings, and flew around. They are now adults. If there are males and females, they will mate and the females will lay new eggs. New tiny caterpillars will come out of these eggs, and the cycle will continue!

Nonfiction texts

We are thinking a lot about nonfiction texts these days. Nonfiction books are true information books. What kind of call number would a nonfiction book have?

Today, we made a chart showing different features that many nonfiction books use to help teach you their information. We found these in books in our classroom. Look around your house. Can you find one of these features in a book, a magazine, or a newspaper? Can you find them in any other kind of text?

Science and Drawing

This past week, we have been doing a lot of drawing in our science lab. We practiced our scientific illustration skills by looking closely at plants, and then moved on to some mystery fossils.

A recent article in the Boston Globe highlighted the importance that drawing plays in professional scientific communities. Drawing is a chance to look closely, notice fine details, and work beyond the general symbol of a thing that exists in our heads to a more nuanced reflection of what is actually there. Drawing is also a way to communicate our ideas with our audience, and to show what we are thinking and imagining. When we draw, we refine our own understanding in order to make our idea clear to someone else. Gradually, our pictures of animals lose their smiley faces. In their place, we draw the compound eye and segmented body of a cricket. This closer attention changes our understanding of the world.

Happy Read Across America Day!

We love to read!

Happy Read Across America Day! from Stephen MacLellan on Vimeo.

Please note, this video requires our password to view.