The Structure of a Plant

 Students read the article The Structure of a Corn Plant from the Benchmark reading series to investigate the structure and function of a plant's parts. Students were familiar with the stem, roots, and leaves, but many did not recognize some of the other parts of the plant. After reading the article, we headed outside to our garden plot where we looked at a variety of plants that were approaching the end of their life cycle. 

Students uprooted the Bibb lettuce and brought it back to the classroom to compare and contrast how the lettuce plant was similar and different from the corn plant. Many students connected the lettuce seeds to dandelion seeds and imagined how a lettuce seed could easily travel with a gust of wind, thanks to its cotton-like top!

                    

Students annotated the parts of the plant and used their Benchmarks text to help with labeling.

Students harvested the seeds and compared these seeds to the ones that I used from the seed packet. They were exactly the same!! Students collected some seeds to take home and were encouraged to plant them and watch the cycle continue!

And as we were looking at the various garden plots, we saw this pest! We observed signs of its wrath before actually finding it!

The Tomato Hornworm!!!!!! Truth be told, we did not kill it. Rather, we broke off the stem of the tomato plant and brought it inside to observe it for a few days! Eventually, they turn into a Sphynx moth.

Thelen's Carnival Basket!

 

Area Investigation

 Students have been exploring area and experimenting with fractional side lengths. 

Warm Up:

What dimensions could you have for the area of 24 units?

Students used sticky notes to represent possible dimensions. Here are some student examples that students shared:

Follow up questions:

Do you have all of the possible dimensions? 

How do you know?

Next: Students were provided with the following question from Illustrative Mathematics!

Using the hallway tiles, which are 1 square foot each, students worked to mark out the dimensions for Chavone's bathroom floor. This helped students make sense of the fractional sides. This problem proved challenging as the fractional parts had different denominators. Students worked together and were able to solve the problem! Can our class fit in Chavone's bathroom? Yes!

Students finished the session by playing Name that Number! 

Name That Number!

 Our class has started our first unit in Everyday Math which is focused on volume and order of operations. Students are introduced to the game Name That Number where they are provided a series of numbers that can be used only once to arrive at the "Target" number. Students have choice over which operations they use and are encouraged to use parentheses in the expression. While students can play this game on their iPad, I prefer for us to share our expressions so students can see and hear how others approach the target number. It is FUN. Students love it! 

My screen was full of awesome student thinking! I rewrote some of our favorites on chart paper (so it is actually readable!). Pretty awesome huh?? When students use negative numbers or fractions in their expressions, this is quite instructive during the first week of school! Great fun and a super way to practice and play with order of operations!