Happy Earth Day All!

I trust that all of you have enjoyed the weekend and found ways to celebrate earth day.  Many classrooms at Marquette participated in designing reusable bags for Metcalfe's Grocery in conjunction with Sustain Dane.

Family Fun Night was a huge success and I had many visitors in the Photo Booth.  If you came to see me on Friday night, you know that the room was outrageously HOT but we had fun taking photos.  Here are a few highlights.

Our work in math has shifted from 2-D shapes to 3-D shapes.  Student groups were given a set of 12 various 3-D shapes and they did various sorts with these shapes finding 2 or 3 different groups they could use to categorize the shapes.  For example: curved sides, more than 8 sides, more than 10 vertices, etc.  Students then defined Polyhedron, Pyramids and Prisms.

 Students have been engaged in activities that are introducing them to (or solidifying their understanding) of some principals of sound.  We began our investigation with learning about sound discrimination.  Students learned that items have many properties including how they sound when dropped.

Items were dropped into a sound chamber and students were asked to identify which item was dropped based on the sound that the item made.  For example: a coin has a distinct sound from a plastic spoon.

Once students were able to identify the objects by the sound they made, they then created a code using these sounds.  They were able to send words to another team by using this code.

This week students are exploring the concept of pitch and what can cause different pitches (high and low) and what type of vibrations are associated with high and low pitch sounds.

Animal Research
It is with great excitement that we begin our quest to research animals.  Students will be spending time in the LMC using online and print resources to research various animals.  We have a wide range of animals from alligators to komodo dragons to gelada baboons to moose!  Students are taking notes about their animals and will be creating posters to teach the rest of the class.

Speaking of computers, all students were trained by Mary Clark to use email.  They have all been assigned a school district email account with unique logins and passwords.  They are welcome to practice their skills by sending me an email at kamack@madison.k12.wi.us and they can check their email accounts at www.madison.k12.wi.us

I will do another update later this week updating you on our class play and the various trips we have planned for May.  That should be ready in a few days!