January By: Megan

In math during January, we were working on ALEKS. ALEKS is a program where we can work on our own at our own pace. We also play a game called 24. When we play it, it gets intense. If we get the answer right, we get CANDY! I know, pretty sweet. Anyways, in order to get the candy, we need to make the 4 numbers given to us equal 24. We can use multiplication, division, addition, and subtraction. Also, we learned a new version when we use square root, cubed root, squaring, and cubing.

In social studies, we just wrapped up our unit on Ancient China. We learned about the Shang, Qin, and Han dynasty. For the Shang dynasty, we made an advertisement to convince someone to come to Ancient Shang. Also, we did our unit on Ancient India and Mesopotamia. For Mesopotamia, we mapped out Mohenjo-Daro including paved roads, manholes(sewers), and a citadel.

In science, we are doing our Matter and Energy unit. It is pretty interesting, because we are learning about things that we wouldn’t learn watching TV. We also made oobleck, a ‘liquid’ that consisted of corn starch and water. It felt really weird, because it made almost a slime. But, then it hardened up a bit, and it was more like rubber.

In writers’ workshop, we are just finishing up our illustrations for our books. Now, we are starting our creative writing pieces. We had to do some prewriting before we started, and then we did our 5 senses throughout the piece. In readers’ workshop, we are just starting some new book clubs. I am reading the School of Fear with Maggie, Charlene, and Elly.

In art, we are just starting. We have already finished our Cave Paintings, when we draw bulls, horses, and reindeer with yellow, orange, and red crayons. Then, we colored the background. After that, we crumpled up the paper and then tore the edges. It turned out really cool! Now, we are starting our Egyptian Hieroglyphics when we write our names in Hieroglyphs. Then, we are supposed to color around our pictures with metallic colored pencils on black construction paper.