Spring is upon us! The sun is shining, the sky is blue and on March 20th we can officially welcome Spring!
This was yet another busy week in Division 7.
We are immersed in our study of Butterflies. We learned all about the anatomy of the caterpillar. Ask your young scientist if they remember the difference between the true legs, thoracic legs and prolegs (**hint, some legs are used for holding food, some legs will remain for when the larva becomes a butterfly and some legs are used for climbing). Your scientist is encouraged to tell you all about the following wonders: have you ever wondered how a caterpillar can climb in a vertical position? What is an adaptation that the caterpillar has that allows them to move in such a way? How can a caterpillar protect itself? Are some caterpillars cute and fuzzy just for appearance or is there another reason for why they have bristles? As scientists, we learned new vocabulary pertaining to the caterpillar, one interesting word is spiracles! Spiracles are the external openings that allow for gas exchange (respiration), it is the organ that allows the caterpillar to breathe. One interesting fact that we were astonished with is the number of eyes that a caterpillar has, not just two like we thought, but they in fact have 12 eyes! YES, 12!! However, most are so tiny in size that you can not even see them.
This week we really enjoyed exploring the various landforms that make up our world. We began by making a landforms flapbook that consisted of various layers of landforms. Next, I was set on the students creating a dinosaur landform. My intention was to draw a dinosaur that incorporated the various landforms that we have discovered thus far, this consisted of a river, lake, bay, peninsula, mountain, valley, hill, plain, island and ocean. However, my ‘plan’ was quickly thrown to the wayside as the students expressed that hope to instill their own creativity into the assignment and rather than create a dinosaur, similar to my example, they wanted to create their own unique animal. I was all for this plan, however, the only requirement was that they must include all the landforms, and boy were the students up for the challenge. They were the teacher and I was the student in this lesson as I was blown away with their creativity and originality with this activity. I now am enjoying landform dragons, robots, humans, godzillas, a stegosaurus and so much more!
We continue to learn and practice our Social Thinking skills. As a class we have discussed the importance of being on the group plan compared to being on our own plan. When we are working on the outlined group plan, we are working together and striving to accomplish the same goal, which ultimately makes things smoother and easier for everyone. When one or two people stray to be on their own plan while others are on the group plan it can make things more difficult to accomplish as we are no longer working together. Along with practicing being on the group plan, we continue to demonstrate our ability to show whole body listening. Listening with not only our eyes, but our ears, mouths, hands and feet. When we are actively looking at the speaker we are thinking of the speaker. Our bodies remain cool and calm, and in control, to demonstrate respect to our listener and to show that we are engaged.
Something that many of the students look forward to is Friday! Hip hip hooray for the weekend but also for MATH GAMES! Today we rotated through various math games that again focused on foundational addition and subtraction skills. We continue to practice our ability to recall all the combinations of numbers that add up to ten, known as a fact family, as well as using our knowledge of doubles (i.e., 8+8 = 16) and doubles +1 (i.e., 8+8+1 = 17). Today was another great round of math games, the beautiful combination of learning through fun and games.
