Happy Hikers

Mosaic Hikes for Hunger

 We started off the week with a brisk and invigorating Hike for Hunger at Catamount Family Center. Thank you to all of the families and friends who donated to this wonderful and important cause. Mosaic House was able to raise over $1500.00 to donate to Hunger Free Vermont! What a fantastic way to start the week.

This week we also began our first fourth grade book club. We are all reading Kate DiCamillo's Because of Winn Dixie and began the week thinking about what it means to be a productive member of a book club by developing book club norms and practicing expectations for accountable talk and active listening. During the week your students will be reading independently and making "tracks" or thinking notes in their very own copy of the book! We will meet a few times a week as a group to discussion our predictions, wonderings, connections, and big ideas around the book. They will also be responding to writing prompts in their Reading Notebooks and on Kid Blog.

In addition to reading in class your student will be expected to complete some of the reading at home. Each Monday they will get a weekly calendar that explains their reading responsibilities for the week. This at home reading will count as their 20 minutes of reading homework for those nights. They will need to be sure that they are mindful to bring the book to and from school to be prepared for their book groups. Here are some prompts that you can use to discuss the book with your young reader:

"What do you know about the characters so far?" "Who is your favorite?" Why?
"If you were Opal, would you have taken that dog home from the store?"
"Do you have any connections to the book from your life? From another book you've read?"
"Have you come across any new vocabulary words? How did you figure out what you think it means?"
"Do you like Kate DiCamillo's style of writing? Why?"
"Why do you think the book is called Because of Winn-Dixie?" What makes you think that?

On Thursday the fourth graders went to the Beginner Band Demonstration to learn about their options for learning to play an instrument. We have many students who are interested in joining and we encourage this wonderful activity. With that being said, we also have discussed with our students just how much of a commitment joining the band is both in and out of school. They will need to have at least 20 minutes to practice each day at least five days a week. They also miss class time for these lessons and will need to find time to make up any work that they miss throughout the day.  If you child is considering joining the band they have a packet in their Friday folder that should answer any questions that you have.  They must sign up online (or we can provide a hard copy) by October 30. 

We will end the week with our Harvest Crafternoon on Friday from 12:45-1:45. If you can volunteer to run a craft we would welcome you to join in the fun. If not, we are asking for healthy snacks/beverages/paper goods to enjoy the special day with. A sign up went home last week or you can email Liz or Jess with any contributions you are able to make.

Solar Oven Engineers

It was nice to see all of you at conferences over the past two weeks. Thanks for taking the time to meet with us.

Over the past few weeks we have transformed into Green Engineers as we followed the Scientific Method and Engineering Design Process to create Solar Ovens. The first step was to carry out an inquiry task around how color affects temperature. Students designed a test to determine if color would determine the maximum temperature of an object. Their data confirmed what many of them predicted from their own background knowledge-the black object had the highest temperature because it absorbs the most heat, while the white object has the lowest temperature chance because it reflects heat. This knowledge would prove to come in handy during our next step.

After learning about the need for Solar Oven in countries like Sierra Leone, our own WCS Green Engineers followed the steps of the Engineering Design Process (EDP) to create a solar oven that was a good insulator but also had a low environmental impact.

Like real engineers we followed the steps of the E.D.P.

1. ASK- First, we had to figure out what materials were good insulators. After brainstorming what we knew already we tested five different materials (newspaper, foam, foil, plastic, and felt) in two different forms (flat and shredded).  To do this we filled a cup with the material and submerged it into ice cold water and used a digital thermometer (and some new math using decimals) to determine which materials were the best insulators. Our top three were newspaper, felt, and foam.  Then we needed to discuss which of these materials had the lowest impact on the environment.  After a lot of debate, the engineers decided that newspaper and plastic had low impact scores because they could reduce the amount, and reuse or recycle the materials.

2. IMAGINE- Now the teams of engineers used their newfound understandings to brainstorm the different ways that they could design their solar ovens to meet our criteria.

3. PLAN- Once all of the ideas in the group had been heard the teams planned out what their prototype would look like and what materials they would need.

4. CREATE- The teams went to work designing and creating their oven hoping that it would hold heat longer than the control and have a low impact on the environment. Then we took the small pocket of sunshine that we were given last week and tested.

5. IMPROVE- The teams analyzed their data and wrote strong conclusions about their findings. This brought up many ideas around how the designs could be improved to meet the criteria even more successfully.

Check out this slideshow to see this engaging, integrated unit of study in action. We are so proud of the collaboration, creativity and determination of these Environmental Engineers.

Create your own free collage In math we have also begun a new unit of study around tackling multi-digit multiplication and dealing with remainders in division. Check out this link to see these concepts.  Next week we will begin a fourth grade book club. Our first book if Because of Winn-Dixie By: Kate DiCamillo. We will begin by establishing norms for our club and practicing what it looks and sounds like to be a part of a rich discussion about a book. Then the readers will get their very own copy of the text that they can read closely and mark up with their thoughts. Each week they will have reading homework from the text. This will count as their twenty minutes of reading for the evening it is assigned. Feel free to read and discuss the book along with us.