Welcome back!

I hope that everyone had a restful and enjoyable spring break. After our two week vacation, everyone returned to school relaxed and ready to learn. Here's how we spent our week:

Monday morning we shared highlights from our vacations. Many of our classmates were able to travel during our time off. During break I was able to visit friends and family in California and New York. In New York, I was able to visit the classroom of our pen pals! I was able to share pictures of what a classroom in New York looks like, and what life is like for our pen pals. We will be writing back to our pen pals soon to talk about some of the similarities and differences we noticed.

In Hawaiian Studies, we continue our study of volcanoes. On Tuesday we saw two demonstrations teaching us more about plate tectonics. Our first demonstration showed us how the earth plates, represented by graham crackers, sort of "float" on the earth's mantle, represented by chocolate pudding. Because the plates move, they sometimes rub against or run into other plates, and this is what causes earthquakes and volcanoes. This brought us to our second demonstration. This demostration taught us about how the Hawaiian Islands were formed and why there are active volcanoes in the middle of a plate. In this demonstration we saw how a hot spot in the mantle, represented by toothpaste, stays in one place, while an earth plate, represented by a plastic grid, moves across the hot spot. Our volcano studies will continue next week with another field trip to the Bishop Museum on Thursday.

This week we also chose books for a new round of literature circles. Books and reading schedules go home with students next week.

We are now winding down in our study of division and will soon be starting to learn about fractions.

That's all for this week. Please check in next week. Please remember that there will not be any school tomorrow because of Good Friday. I wish everyone a Happy Easter!

Posted on April 5, 2007 1:36 PM | Permalink