What’s Inside Alphas THIS WEEK!
Our Travel Buddy visits shared a wealth of knowledge of how to care for our circulatory systems…
“Shhh…Nobody move a muscle!” This is how our unit on our Muscular systems started…but some of our involuntary muscles were moving anyway – without us even thinking about it. Jumping off of the information we learned about our circulatory system we talked about our busiest muscle – our hearts.
We worked on feeling for our pulse in our neck or our wrists to count the beats per minute. We had our own PE circuit workout session with stations named Keepy Uppy, Dances with Scarves, Running with Cones, Balance with a Ruler and Sit-up-Push-up. It was a unanimous agreement that Running with Cones was the one that elevated our breathing the most and made our hearts work most vigorously.
Creating the 4 chambers of our heart
The second type of muscle we discussed was the 600 mover muscles. We discovered that these muscles are designed differently – like a bunch of bands tied together – because they have to be strong enough to move our bones. We created models to demonstrate how these muscles have to work together to contract and extend – like the bicep and the tricep.
We then moved on to smooth muscles that can react quickly like goosebumps but also, unlike the quick, powerful movements of the skeletal muscles, need to move slowly over a long period of time to do their jobs, like getting food to the stomach and digested.
Types of Muscles knowledge in our journals…
Adding color to our skull art…
What could we learn from Two on a Pencil?
This challenge to work together involves guiding a pencil to create something without talking! Our partners then shared how their teamwork went and offering appreciations for one another. Learning how to vocalize our thoughts and to reflect is a large part of building communication in our Alpha community.
This week in Math…
Ms. Kim’s Group…
We practiced writing our numbers!
Anna is mastering tricky-twos!
This week we added equations and learned a new game that helps us practice a “counting-on” strategy.
We reviewed patterns and made a cool “fractal tree.”
We made symmetrical leaves and butterflies in honor of the equinox: when our season changes to FALL (we hope the weather will reflect this soon too)!
Ms. Eliza’s Group…
Math Wizards were discovering and practicing what makes a number ODD or EVEN. We solved mazes, played games and defined this concept in our own words. IWhat seems like an easy concept to us now, can take a while to understand when first using it. We learned the rules and began to play the Math Pentathlon game StarTrak.
Place Value War Five Towers Game
This week in Language Arts…
Ms. Eliza’s Group…
Our letters of this week? The lively L and the naughty, but nice N. We played alphabet games, and as always, practiced our handwriting. We had a few great talks about characters including Pezzo the Cap Seller in Caps for Sale, Princess Penelope’s Parrot – a princess, we reflected on later, who had the qualities of being selfish, greedy, mean, and spoiled. And she didn’t change either! We read The Big Green Pocketbook and filled our own pocketbooks with things we’d like to have in them – like nintendo switch, a journal, and candy! We made more words like m-a-n and t-a-n with our moveable alphabets as now we have n and l to work with!
Reading to self time
Ms. Kim’s Group…
We continued practicing summarizing Stellaluna the “5 W’s and an H” (who, what, where, when, why, and how). This really helped us dial down on events that led to the plot of the story.
We made a missing-person poster for Stellaluna!
We worked on High Frequency words, syllabication, and reviewed digraphs!
Morning Activities…
Alphas are cookin’…
Pumpkin Spice Energy Balls with protein and carbohydrates to fuel our muscles!
…and gettin’ STEAM-y!
To answer “What can you make using play-doh and pasta?” We say…
A Bowl of Pasta in a Pasta Bowl!
A Stem for a Flower!
Porcupines!
SEA URCHINS!
A MUMMY inside a PYRAMID!
