February Newsletter!

ACI 1 Newsletter February 4th to March 1st, 2013
Hello Families!      January was a great month!  We kept very busy with preparing for our Recipe Presentations and tending to our Kidney Bean Plant Project.  Our Kidney Bean Plant Project was a fun experience!      The students were excited to tend to their plant everyday and had many questions about why some were growing more quickly than others, why some had to be replanted and what could be done to make them grow faster.  At the end of each week, the students continued to complete their Plant Diary using their observation skills to describe how it looked and what life stage their plant was in.  We were happy to see many of them in different life stages!      As a precursor to the students doing their recipe presentations we did a simple, short and fun cooking activity to help them prepare for their presentations. We had a great time making Honey Joys!      We could see all the students worked really hard on their recipe posters as many of them were decorated with stickers, markers, crayons and fantastic hand drawn pictures of ingredients and of the food itself.  We will be posting presentation videos and pictures of the students with their posters later in the week.      This month we will be focusing on Simple Machines in Science, 3D Geometry in Math and Inventions in ELA.  The students will also be giving a short presentation on an inventor and their invention at the end of the month.   We look forward to what’s to come this month!	ELA:  “Necessity is the mother of invention.” Week 1 – What Are Inventions?      We will learn about inventions, why they are important and why people are continually trying to invent things.  Students will also think about things they use in their daily lives and what it would be like if they didn’t have certain inventions, for example, the telephone or TV. Week 2 – The Evolution of Inventions      We will learn about what a timeline is and how to create one.  We will choose an invention and create a timeline together and track how it has changed and improved (or not improved?) over time since it was first invented.  Students will start thinking about an inventor for their Inventions Presentation. Week 3 – Famous Inventors and Their Inventions      This week students will learn about some famous inventors who changed our daily lives because of their invention.  We will also learn about creating a biography and timeline about an inventor.  Students will also choose an inventor for their presentation. Week 4 – New and Emerging Inventions      We will discuss the importance of why new inventions are still needed.  What inventions do we still need and/or want to have?  The students will also think like an inventor and think about the important things we need to consider before inventing something. During this week we will also have our Inventions Presentations!
Math      This month we turn our focus to learning about 3D Geometry.       We will learn about the different geometric properties of 3D shapes, what makes them unique from 2D shapes and the different movements they can make.  Students will also learn how to compare and classify the shapes by their properties.       We’ll also have a great time constructing 3D and 2D shapes using different craft materials!	Science Week 1 – What Are Simple Machines?      We will learn about what simple machines are, the most common six types used in our everyday lives and why they are useful. Week 2 – Where Can I Find Simple Machines?      We will look around our classroom and school to try to identify different simple machines, describe their properties and how they make our lives easier. Week 3 – Creating My Own Catapult!      We will learn about what a catapult is, how it works, how it can be useful and finally, we get to construct our very own mini catapult! Week 4 – Testing My Catapult! YAY!      Experimentation Time!  In this final week of our unit of Simple Machines, we will be able to test our catapult by making hypotheses and observations about how far it launch small things like beads and marshmallows into the air!