Monday, November 15, 2010

4th Grade - The word of the day was Aqueduct (ACK wa duct). It means a large pipe or conduit for carrying water from a distant location and sounds like Aqua Duck. The pilgrim of the day was Mary Cassatt. Mary was an artist during a time when women didn't work outside of the home. Her own father didn't encourage her, but Mary was not easily discouraged. She spent several years training in Europe eventually joining a group labeled "Impressionists." The warm-up activity of the day was 20 questions. This particular group hasn't figured out what the item is yet. Our affective thinking focused on confidence and Insecurity. Students pondered how confidences and insecurities affect performance in all areas of life. Our Explorations study was wanting us to understand that the explorations of new frontiers may impact advancements in other fields of study. Students reviewed the Scientific Method as they learned about how the continents at one time could have all been together as one large continent known as "Pangea." Today, in our SOS project, students learned about Flotsam and Jetsam. Flotsam refers to cargo that falls off a ship. Jetsam refers to cargo that the crew actually throws off the ship. Students then used what they learned about ocean currents to find out how items lost at one sea could end up in another ocean.