Unit
During this unit the students will be exploring the impact (both positive and negative) that humans have on the environment. We will investigate how to care for and share the planet responsibly with other living things.
The central idea of this unit is that "humans make choices that have an impact on living things." We will learn about the needs of all living things, including ourselves, and how our actions can have consequences that affect them. We will discuss our responsibility both to animals we can care for, such as pets, and animals we have little direct contact with, such as wild animals. Finally, we will think of how we can have a positive impact on animals and the environment, finding ways to turn our thoughts into actions.
We started the first week by understanding what are good choices, bad choices, and those that fall in between. The students were introduced to the term empathy. We discussed the importance of putting ourselves into others shoes. It not only helps us better understand their perspective, but it can affect the choices we make.
Looking at images and role playing scenarios about choices we make
Starting our unit by discussing the concept of empathy and choices tied nicely into our Giving Back Bazaar. Thank you for all of your help to make this a successful event! The children enjoyed decorating our trees at Via Jenner and placed their donated shoes under them. Then we spent the morning of the bazaar at Via Tajani with our fifth grade buddies. We took some time to get to know each other before we made placemats for the refugee center. After our placemats were finished, we enjoyed a warm cup of hot chocolate. Then we enjoyed shopping at the craft fair. We wrapped up our trip to the bazaar by singing All You Need is Love with all the EC students and teachers in the atrium.
Enjoying a warm cup of hot chocolate after our hard work
Before our field trip to Villa Pamphili, we differentiated between living and nonliving things. Then we explored the needs of living things: water, food, space, and shelter. During our trip to the park, we noted all the living things we saw such as swans, ducks, trees, grass, dogs, flowers, a horse, and ants just to name a few! We tried to identify how the park met their needs. Along the way, we found animal shelters including three fox dens! To help record our findings, we used Adobe Voice to capture images and record our thoughts. When the videos are finished we will share them!
Field Trip To Villa Pamphili
Meeting the ducks
Horse at the park
Fox Den
Lake
Group Picture
The needs for the dog we saw
The needs for a fox
Reading
We are working hard to recognize sight words and to learn their spelling. We participate in activities such as Rainbow Writing and Writing in Polenta that help reinforce the words. We also make little sight word books. At home, go on sight word searches through their storybooks.In guided reading groups, we practice our letter sound fluency by saying the sounds of random letters as quickly and accurately as we can. Each time we practice we improve!
We continue to learn more of the alphabet and then use these letters in our writing and reading.
New letters: l, j, h, k
Spelling sight words in polenta
Drawing pictures that begin with the /k/ sound
Math
We continue to play various games where we combine numbers and write equations. We continue to reinforce counting and number recognition along with math vocabulary such as more than and less than. Check out this website for story problems:
Visit this website to see a variety of games focused on different math skills:
Playing 'Add the Room'
Special Visitor!
On Wednesday we had a special guest! All of us brought in gifts and gave them to Santa. He will take those gifts and make many children happy! In return, Santa gave us a small sweet treat!
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