We're well into our second full week now: the foundation's been laid (or if you prefer the other metaphor, the rocket's trajectory has stabilized). Our crew is functioning well and learning a lot.
Expedition
We continued "Hunka' Hunka' Burnin' Earth" by beginning to explore the building blocks of the earth's crust, minerals and rocks. We examined a variety of rock and mineral samples and looked for properties by which we can classify them. We then defined the difference between the terms "rock" and "mineral." As we did this, we talked about how minerals are formed with specific shapes called crystals. After that, we grew crystals from a sodium chloride solution (salt water). We'll discover in upcoming learning experiences why the particular shapes of crystals can be important in the way Earth's materials such as magma/lava behave.
Math
We continued our look at number theory concepts, deepening our understanding of prime and composite numbers, and learning what square numbers are (we defined these two ways: numbers based on arrays with an equal number of rows and columns--i.e., squares; numbers that are the product of a number multiplied by itself) We also looked at how we "unsquare" numbers (find their square roots).
Reader's Workshop
In our reader's workshop time we reviewed and practiced two different comprehension skills: 1) making notes of our thinking (e.g., questions, connections, disagreements, etc.) as we read so we can discuss the text with others 2) using the text features of non-fiction text to aid our understanding of the text.
Writer's Workshop
We explored more mentor texts this week to learn about the characteristics of memoir writing. We've now identified seventeen techniques that can be used in this genre. Our mentor texts were from the book Boy by Roald Dahl--a great autobiography filled with richly entertaining vignettes from the writer's years growing up in the 1920's.
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