2nd/3rd: Week of May 5

Math –

Ms. Andrea’s math group powered through their End of Year Assessment!! These Betas have worked so hard this year – we’re spending our last days together planning an epic space trip! So far this week we’ve reviewed qualifications and hired a team of astronauts and specialists for the mission, carefully planned a training schedule for them, and helped another team figure out which supplies they can afford to purchase for their trip. Needless to say, it’s been a busy week. We’re also making time for some targeted review of yearlong skills to ensure our math minds are as sharp as cosmic rays going into next year.

Ms. Kelly’s crew spent a few days reviewing how to tell time—to the hour, half hour, quarter hour, and all the way down to the minute. From there, we jumped into the more complex concept of elapsed time. Using number lines to visualize elapsed time helped students understand how much time has passed, or to figure out start and end times based on a given duration. This visual strategy makes time intervals more concrete and accessible, and really supports their growing confidence with this tricky concept!

Reading –

Ms. Kelly’s spelling group explored the suffixes -er and -est. Not only did the kiddos work on dividing FOUR-syllable words this week, but we also took a deep dive into word meaning—specifically, the morphology of word parts. We focused on the importance of paying close attention to prefixes and suffixes to understand a word’s structure and meaning. A perfect example came during our word sort activity. We had two columns for the suffix -er, and many words to read and sort correctly. To place each word in the proper column, we had to understand its meaning—reinforcing how essential morphology is to word study.

Ms. Andrea’s spelling group worked their tails off this week, reviewing compound words AND all of the spelling patterns we’ve learned this quarter, plus the correct use of apostrophes! Is it a contraction? Possessive? Plural? Plural possessive? We’ve been very busy but they were up for the challenge. They are rockstars.

Book clubs this week: Our readers are busy piecing together clues, reflecting, asking thoughtful questions, and making predictions. It’s such a joy to watch these kiddos read, discuss, and support one another—true teamwork in action!

Writing –

Our Beta writers have been hard at work over the past seven weeks—researching, gathering relevant facts, organizing their ideas, and carefully editing their writing into cohesive, informative pieces. They’ve also used their creativity to transform their nonfiction books into something truly special. We can’t wait to share their incredible work with you at PoP!

Theme –

Last week we blasted off to the first four planets in our solar system, the rocky planets, so this week we visited the remaining four, our outer gas giants! First up was Jupiter! Jupiter is the largest planet in the Solar System and is the fifth planet from the sun. It is more than 300 times more massive than Earth and is more than two times as massive than all the other planets combined. Its surface is made up of a thick layer of hydrogen gas. Jupiter’s surface is very violent with massive hurricane-like storms, winds, thunder and lightning. One storm on Jupiter, called the Great Red Spot, is three times the size of earth. The Great Red Spot has been storming for hundreds of years. The energy powering Jupiter’s storms isn’t from the sun, but is from radiation generated by Jupiter itself. We did a quick experiment to replicate The Great Red Spot using milk, food coloring and a drop of dish soap!

Next up was Saturn! Saturn is the sixth planet from the sun. It is most famous for its beautiful giant rings. Saturn is the second largest planet in the solar system after Jupiter. It is only slightly smaller than Jupiter in diameter, but is much smaller in mass. Saturn is made up of mostly hydrogen with some helium. Overall, Saturn is the least dense planet in the solar system. It is the only planet that is less dense than water, meaning it would actually float on a (huge) ocean of water. Saturn’s rings are made up of mostly ice particles with some dust and rocks as well. There are billions of these particles and they vary in size from specs of dust to rocks as big as a bus. The rings are located around Saturn’s equator. Many people think the rings are solid but it is an illusion. What you are seeing are the particles moving so fast it looks solid! We demonstrated it with a cube tied to the end of a string. When swung very quickly the one object makes a ring!

Moving on to Uranus! Uranus is the seventh planet from the sun and an ice giant (instead of a gas giant). It’s mostly made of flowing icy materials above a solid core. Uranus has a thick atmosphere made of methane (hence the tooty smell!) hydrogen, and helium. Uranus is the only planet that spins on its side. The core of the planet has such powerful pressures and relatively high temperatures that it turns the carbon particles to diamonds. These are circulated into the atmosphere due to the many layers of clouds the planet has, that it rains diamonds. Uranus gets its blue-green color from methane gas in the atmosphere. Sunlight passes through the atmosphere and is reflected back out by Uranus’ cloud tops. Methane gas absorbs the red portion of the light, resulting in a blue-green color.

Last stop, Neptune! Neptune is the eighth and now the most distant planet (sorry, Pluto) and is a cold and dark world nearly 3 billion miles from the Sun. The planet Neptune is named after the Roman god of the sea. In Greek mythology, he is known as Poseidon. The planet was probably given this name due to its blue appearance. Like other gas giants, Neptune has a ring system, six of them to be exact, but they are faint. Neptune also has 14 confirmed moons. The weather on Neptune is very active. Sometimes dark spots form in the atmosphere, which are basically storms the size of Earth, how crazy is that?