Gravity!

Happy Weekend!

We started a new unit: Earth in Space and Time and our first week was on gravity! We had so much fun with our activities & books...

We started the week off with watercolor painting to do "Gravity Falls" and we loved this! We made the watercolor fall so many times that almost all of our papers got so soggy that they ripped, so we just threw them in the trash can instead of taking them home! (You're welcome ;) )

Then once we had the concept of gravity, the next day we watched a really cool video on helicopter drops and we got to break a very serious rule: NO standing on chairs!

I quickly made each of them their very own paper helicopter and they got to color it and then after many reminders of safety, we all climbed up on our chairs and dropped our helicopters to watch gravity do it's part! They loved watching them spin and probably could have continued to drop them all day had I let them...!

Not the best picture, but you can see a couple helicopters spinning to the ground!

Then on Thursday, we made an apple tree craft to show how gravity was discovered: an apple falling off a tree! We wrote about our trees in our journals and the trees are hanging on our bookshelf!

We loved reading "Chicken Little" where the characters thought the sky was falling because an acorn fell off a tree, and one of our non-fiction books, "Gravity-defying Animals." My personal favorite was the flying squirrel, but the kids were all over the board when we voted! :)

Ask Your Child About:

-Writing: Informative writing- writing sentences to give the reader information. Why do apples fall from trees?

-Content Connection: Earth in Space and Time: Gravity! Why do things fall down instead of up? What would we have to do in order to be able to slam dunk? (Change the size of Earth so the gravity changes!)

-Phonics: Decoding CVC words with digraphs - they are getting so quick at this and I am one happy teacher!

-Fluency: "The Big Red Train" poem- I like to ride my big, red train. I like to ride in the rain, rain, rain. See me race and go so fast. I will win and not be last! I sit up on the engine so tall, Up so high, I see it all!

-Reading: Unknown words & Describing the relationship between illustrations and text- Which gravity-defying animal was your favorite?

-Math: Numbers 16-20- Can you draw me a tree map for the number 17? Can you write the equation for it?

A Few Reminders:

-Next week is a fun-filled week: Leap Day on Monday (wear green!) and Dr. Seuss Week (see blue flyer sent home)

-If you have not returned your movie permission slip, please do so by Wednesday 3/2!

-March Snack is due on Tuesday!

-Please be working on sight words! They are growing so much, but I need your help with sight words at home!

Enjoy your Sunday!

With SO much love,

Ms. Ham

Disclaimer: I have written permission to post photos of students from parents/guardians. :)