Mrs. Reuter's Class Chronicles
January 4-8, 2016
CSI: A Roanoke Colony Investigation
In Social Studies, the students investigated the disappearance of the British colonists at Roanoke Island. They analyzed pieces of evidence discovered by historians and decided which of the proposed scenarios they agreed with.
This week in Language Arts, we got assigned a Keynote project about the two Rodman Philbrick novels we read. We read one of the novels in literature circles before winter break and then got to choose another book by Rodman Philbrick to read over break. Some examples of the books people chose to read were Max the Mighty, Zane and the Hurricane, and The Old Man and the Sea. There were ten main sections in the Keynote. There was an author biography, book information, a plot summary, setting, conflict, protagonist and antagonist, theme, tone, and literary devices. We had to compare and contrast these different things in our two books. Everyone did a really good job completing their Keynotes and it was fun reading different books!
By Ethan F. & Jaina
In Science, we started learning about space: different kinds of stars and the sun. Mrs. Reuter gave us a sheet of paper and told us to write down whatever we thought was in space and the sky. Some of the things we wrote were stars, birds, the sun, the moon, asteroids, planets and black holes. After, she showed us a video of a song. It was a catchy song that helped us learn about the sun's composition. We then made a diagram of our solar system based on what we already knew about the solar system. We did really well, but some of us made little silly mistakes like not drawing the rings to show the planets' orbit. We also learned about different types of stars and made diagrams of star life cycles. Science was fun!
By Amanda & Jessica
This week in Social Studies we talked about the mystery on Roanoke Island. No one knows what actually happened to the colonists who disappeared on Roanoke Island, the first British colony. England sent John White and about 100 colonists to set up a colony in North America. So they settled at Roanoke Island off the coast of North Carolina. After a few months or so, John White went back to England to get more supplies. He thought it would only take about 6-8 months, but it took him three years because England was at war with Spain. When he got back, all the people had disappeared. So, to solve this mystery, we were given CSI packets. In the packets, there are 6 scenarios that have ideas of what happened and evidence that historians have found. One idea was that the colonists moved to nearby Croatoan island because when they disappeared, the colonists left "Croatoan" carved on a tree. We also talked about Jamestown and how it was founded. SocialSstudies was very exciting this week!
By Rand & Tu
Age of Sail
For one of our field trips this year, as you probably already know, we are going on Age of Sail. On Age of Sail, there are five groups/crews. They will work together to compete a task, with their mate leading them. A mate is the student leader of the crew. The crews are the Rigger, (Nick is mate) Galley, (Tedla is the mate) Deckhand, (Amanda T. is the mate) Bosun, (Greta is the mate) and Boat. (Maya is the mate). The Galley crew cooks the food, the Rigger crew puts together the block and tackle, a pulley system, the Boat crew lowers the boat into the water, and gets to go out in it if the tides are right, the Bosun crew works on the boat same with the Deckhand, but the Deckhand raises and lowers the flag. The boat actually sailed in the 19th century. The bunks are wood, and on deck, not under. We have to know the sailing terms, for example: aye, aye, sir (captain), stern, bow, and aft. The captain will give you punishments if you do not follow ship's rules, so you better be on your best behavior! The trip will be very cold, not to mention hard, but it will be fun!
By Nick & Ethan H.
Art with Ms. Martucci
Art was very fun this week because of the new concepts we learned. During Art, we learned the technique of drawing an animal silhouette from another already printed animal drawing. We also learned how to print a copy of an animal drawing on a different price of paper. The animal choices were a giraffe, bird, swan, and many more. We had choices between the papers we could use to make the silhouette. Our options were normal paper or carbon paper. We started by making the silhouette stand out against the background. Next class we will finish coloring the background for our pictures, so we should be close to being done. Overall, we had lots of fun creating images of animal silhouettes during Art.
By Tejal & Katie
Music with Mrs. Kim
This week was a pretty cool week in Music. First, we established the speaking parts for our performance. The theme of our performance is America and we have to wear high dress. After that, we practiced our songs. All of our songs are about the USA. Out of all of the songs, our favorite is called Tour the States. We learned this song earlier in the year when we were about to take our states and capitals test. We can't wait for our performance in February.
By Diane & Rod
PE with Ms. Davis & Mr. Ussery
In PE, we had stations where we would use our sets of cards and do the amount of the activity listed on them.
Some of the cards we did were push-ups, jumping jacks, bear crawl etc. The cards also had different settings, like middle body. The cards also had different levels, like beginner where you did less then the others. Some cards had a time you had to the activity for instead of an amount seconds that you do it. For example, you had to do a certain length of time of wall sits. I like wall sits, but they are not easy. After we played Hunger Games and Swamp Ball. They were hard, but fun!
By Abby & Matt
FIERCE Time with Ms. Johnson
This week in FIERCE we finished our culture presentations. In our culture presentations, we learn about our classmates. We found out where they are from and learned about their family. We realized that we are all very different. We liked learning about other people's culture and how they are unique to the world. We also learned that next week we are learning about peer relationships. We are interested in what we are going to learn.
By Tedla & Greta
Spanish with Señorita Webb
This week in Spanish, on Monday, we played charades. Everyone wrote down a sentence and a word in on a notecard. Then, we put all the cards in a bucket. We split up into two teams. Then, Señorita Webb would choose someone from a team and they would act out one of the words or a sentence. Each team had one minute and fifteen seconds to figure out what the card says and say the word or phrase aloud in Spanish.
On Wednesday, we reviewed Spanish pronouns. Señorita Webb assigned us a project. We got into six groups of three and we are now composing a song about pronouns. In the song, we have to use all the pronouns that we have learned to "lose and find" three things. We will continue working on this project next week.
By Maya & Morgan
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