A Little Bit of Writing and a Little Bit of Science

Well, I blinked and March is over! I can't believe it went by so quickly. 
For Room 222, March was filled with some very exciting and new academic challenges. Our current writing unit is taking us to new genre of writing, Opinions and Arguments. 

Throughout this unit, Room 222 students will be forming an opinion, supporting this statement with valid reasons and learning how to disagree with another person's opinion in an academic way.

We start this process by deciding which piece in our collection is the best or "the blue ribbon winner". We relate this to a dog show. The judges must score the pieces and decide which deserves the award. 

Here you can see a student's work and scores while still in the deciding process. 

This student has chosen to give stars to the cards based on different categories. The one with the most stars won the award. 

This student has picked his favorite winning piece and has started his opinion writing form.

We hope to show you more of our opinion writing at next week's open house!

Recently, our science study switched from Space to Oceans. 

We are starting by learning of the four layers of the Ocean: Tide Pool, Open Ocean, Ocean Floor and the Abyss. 

Following our study of the Tide Pool, the students explored the other 3 layers using food coloring, water and vegetable oil to help show the 3 color differences in the ocean.

After combining all of the ingredients and giving it a good shake, you can see the 3 separate colors that indicate the layers. 

Once our bottles were clean and oil free, the students used Sharpies to label the layers. 

Then, as scientists, we wrote and drew about the experiment and our observations. 

We will continue our Ocean studies through the month of April in many different ways. We can't wait to show you!