On Monday, we are putting our learning to the test and kids are going to show me what they know about living vs non-living concepts on paper. 

 

Then, we are getting deeper into dinosaurs. We will be learning about the continent of Pangea and how it looks different than the continents now (maps and globes standard). We will also be talking more about fossils and even getting to chip away at some fossilized eggs! 

This week in Science we are doing a couple of experiments with living and non living things. We will then go into talking about how living things can die, which then leads to extinction. And what went extinct? You guessed it! Dinosaurs. This week we will dig into what being a paleontologist would look like and what we know about dinosaurs from fossils!

I got a little behind on our economics unit, and will finish up our work on buying and selling goods kids are making. Then, we will take our final assessment for the unit.

 

At the end of the week, I will be introducing the children to our living vs. non-living unit and incorporating it into our problem based learning project all about Dinosaurs. You can support at home by exploring the world around you and finding life in unexpected places, like ants in a log or worms under rocks. Guide kids through answering questions like "What does it take for worms to survive there under that rock?"

This week in Social Studies we are making our own items to sell at our store. Each child will have to decide which object(s) they are going to make, make a budget, use the fake money they have to buy the items, and make the items. We will then decide on a price to sell the items for based on how much they spent making them, and at the end of the week (or next week) they will have a chance to sell their items to each other. 

This week in Social Studies we will continue our Economics unit. We will be learning more about goods and services and what we can use our money for. 

You can support at home by talking about what your family buys that is a good and what services you pay for. You could also talk about if a relative job is providing a good or a service to people. 

This week we begin economics and learning about wants vs. needs. I really like this unit, and think it goes really nicely with the work we do in kindergarten to learn about money in math. You can support at home by encouraging a discussion during shopping with your children. What items do you see that are a want and what items are necessary for your family?

Kids are learning about the concepts in Newton's second law of motion this week. Some terms you can use at home to support them are: lift, gravity, friction, motion, and rest. Kids will experiment with and do some predicting about force and mass.

This week in science we are continuing to learn about physics concepts. Kids will start to learn about Sir Isaac Newton and his contributions to the field. You can support at home by talking about forces at work in your daily life. You could rub your hands together really fast and have your child make some guesses about why they get hot. You could also encourage your child to watch Blaze and the Monster Machines with you and talk about what you learn.

We just finished up our Maps and Globes unit and are now moving into physics: force and motion! This week will be a lot of inquiry questions about force and motion. Please support at home by playing with children and observing speed and direction. For example, notice that one toy goes faster than another and give your child time to think about and suggest why they think that is happening.

This week, we are getting out compasses and learning about the directions. We will also learn to add a compass rose to our maps.

You can support at home by talking about how you know what direction you are traveling when you drive around. For instance, my family looks for mountains to know which way is west when we are navigating locally. We talk about where the sun is in the sky to determine east and west.

This week, we will finish up mapping different habitats, and start learning to use a key to represent information in a map rather than drawings. At home, look at packages and instructions on things to find common symbols we use to explain things. For example, we don't have to draw a recycling truck and a person recycling things to indicate an item is recyclable, we simply use a symbol that we have come to understand represents that an item is recyclable. Similarly, we won't draw elaborate fish on our maps when we want to show they live in a habitat, we will select the symbol we will use to indicate there are fish.

This week in Social Studies, we are learning about community and what it means to be part of different groups with in a community. We will also get into human relationship to the environment.

To support children at home, you can discuss some groups your family may be part of in your community. Some of these include: sporting groups, religious groups, friendship groups or musical groups.