Ms. Mottaz's Class: Happy Friday

We had a wonderful second week in April! Spring fever has kind of set in with the kiddos. Please review with your child school expectations - especially being respectful listeners when instruction is happening (we've been kind of chatty this week).

Special Things Are Happening Next Week!

On Monday, we have an opportunity for a few MU readers to come and read to us!
On Tuesday, we have our field trip to Daniel Boone Regional Library. We will be leaving school at 8:45 and will be returning around 10:30.
On Wednesday, we have our third installment of our nutrition class.
On Thursday, Salina Yoon will be at RBE. The kiddos and teachers are super excited about her visit! Today we made door decorations to welcome her to our school (check out the pictures). There are still copies of Salina Yoon's book that will be signed available. A sheet went home in last week's Friday's Folders or you can click here to view the form.
On Friday, Mrs. McKinzie will be coming in for her April book talks.

Checkout What's Happening in Moss World!

Math: We continued learn about geometry this week! We finished up our re-engagement lesson on Monday. The kiddos discovered how to draw a quadrilateral with only two right angles - these sheets are coming home in your child's Friday Folder (we individually talked to each kiddo about their paper so we did not mark on their paper). We have learned about a variety 3-D shapes (cubes, rectangular prism), cones, cylinders, pyramids) and how to partition a rectangle into equal parts.

Next week, we will be creating arrays and number models to go along with them.

Writing: We finished up writing our Which is Better book by writing our opinion paragraph. We took everything that we learned about writing an opinion (VALID reasons and counterarguments) and included them in our writing. We worked on editing and revising our writing to make it the BEST it can be.

Next week, we will start publishing our Which is Better books.

Reading: We talked about comparing and contrasting resources this week. We compared a nonfictional text to another nonfictional text or media. The kiddos are able to write a similarity and a difference between two different sources. Some of the topics we learned about was Wilma Rudolph, the true story of Winnie-the-Pooh, Mark Twain/Tom Sawyer. You should ask your kiddo about what they learned this week - you will be impressed!

Next week, we will be starting our poetry unit and talking about onomatopoeia.

Word Study: We have continued to work on r-influenced words. This week we have focused on eer, ear and oddball words (words that don't fit the pattern).

Next week, we will focus on ire and ier words (there are also oddball words). Here are next week's words: hire, tire, wire, fire, drier, pliers, fliers, crier, liar, pier.

Science - Earth's Surface: We have continued to talk about what causes the Earth's surface to change. We have learned about slow changes (weathering, erosion & deposition) - we have even learned a song to help us know what each does. You should ask your kiddo to sing the song for you (it is to the tune of "Farmer in the Dell")! Yesterday, we started talking about things that cause rapid changes to the Earth's surface (volcanoes, earthquakes, tsunamis & landslides). The kiddos partnered up and are researching one of these topics to become "experts."

Next week, we will finish up our research and then all the new experts to will teach others about what they have learned. They are really excited about this presentation! :)

Science - Living Organisms: We are also starting to talk about living organisms and what most plants need to survive. We set up an experiment today for the kiddos to prove what plants needs. Our control (Marigold A) has all three sunlight, water & soil. Then we changed the variable of the other plants: no water, too much water, no soil, and no light. We will be observing our plants every week to see if our hypothesis is true that marigolds need sunlight, water and soil to grow.
On Monday, we had Maker Space! We had an opportunity to make paths with Ozobots, program and move a Dash robot, and build circuits with Snap Circuits. The kiddos had a blast!
Today, Mrs. Neale came and read/sang us two books Somewhere Over the Rainbow and What a Wonderful World. It was so cute to hear the kiddos sing along!