2H Class Blog!: Feb. 4th News

Thank you for all of your help with our 100th Day project! I still cannot believe that our 100th day of school is already approaching---our year is going by so fast! I look forward to a fun day together next week as we celebrate this milestone!

Highlights from our week:

*Science: As our States of Matter unit begins to come to an end, it was time to take ALL of their new knowledge and apply it to a real-life problem. Using an engineering unit created by the Museum of Science, students began learning about the role of chemical engineers. During this introduction, the Owls learned about a company called "Creative Juices" who is in the process of creating a new strawberry orange juice. This company had tasked us with creating potential color combinations for this new juice flavor.

After working together to create 10 different color combinations (we all agreed we should use combinations of red and yellow food coloring to get a reddish/orange shade), we voted on our top three favorites. Our next task from "Creative Juices" was to conduct product research. With the help of Mr. Fosher, we invited the entire school community to vote on their favorite juice color.

Our class results!

Our research station! Setup in the main office, students throughout SMS were invited to participate!

The results are in! Color Combination "C" was the winner! (3 drops of red food coloring to 3 drops of yellow food coloring)

Next week, we'll take our chemical engineering skills to the next level as we begin to redesign play dough.
*Math Workshop: We wrapped up our work with multiplication and division this week, hearing a math story, solving complex number stories, drawing illustrations representing equal groups and arrays, and working through various array riddles.

We celebrated our multiplication work by creating "Multiplication Monsters"! Rolling two dice, students had to solve multiplication problems to determine how many eyes, horns, fangs, arms, and legs their monster would have!

It was hard work, but these wonderful creations will be great reminders of our work with multiplication!

*Olympics: With the Olympics approaching, SMS is learning about the participating countries in style! Our Owl Class will be representing SWITZERLAND. We began learning about this mountainous country on Friday and started decorating our door to teach others. We'll continue learning about this great country, as well as the Olympic games, in the upcoming weeks!

We can't wait to see the other decorated doors. We'll officially launch our study of the Olympics on Friday to coincide with the opening ceremonies!

*Writer's Workshop: With nearly all of our science books complete, we spent the week exploring the power of editing and revision. Hearing the story of Austin's Butterfly, our class saw how a first grade student created a drawing of a butterfly. After receiving some specific feedback from his peers, Austin created a second draft. This process went on and on, bringing Austin through FIVE drafts before his final product. The Owls were amazed by his progress and improvement! Working with a partner, they worked on moving their good books into GREAT books!

Some Owls were so moved by the revision process, they channeled this work during their free writing time!

We've sent our fabulous books off to the "publishers" and we'll enjoy celebrating them this week!

*5th Grade Buddies: Seeing our buddies on Thursday this week, instead of Friday, we again participated in an engineering challenge. I think I speak for all of the Owls when I say this was our hardest one yet!! Attempting to build a tower out of cards, everyone quickly realized this was much easier said than done. While this task was at times frustrating, I was VERY impressed by the persistence displayed by each Owl and their use of a growth mindset!

*Progress Reports: On Friday, a progress report was sent home with your child. Please sign and return the progress report envelope (the report itself is yours to keep!). If you have ANY questions or concerns, or would like to set up a conference, please do not hesitate to contact me. Thanks!

Have a wonderful week!

Let's go, Pats!