Pompeii-notebooking page

The children were learning about Mt. Vesuvius and how it erupted and buried the city of Pompeii, Italy.  A sad/tragic story but very interesting and a great history lesson that brings in many components.  One component we were able to review the importance of archaeologists.  Another was about how science has changed and how scientists are on the watch out for things that might cause natural disasters and many times can forewarn communities. 

 

The children have really enjoyed learning the meaning behind some of our English words.  Volcano actually came from the name of a Roman god named Vulcan.  They believed that Vulcan was a blacksmith god who was busy deep in the ground at his fiery forge creating weapons and other items for the other gods and goddesses and every once in awhile the heat, smoke, and flames would break through the surface of the Earth.  This was their way of explaining what we know today as volcanoes.

 

A simple but well-enjoyed notebooking page today for History2. 

4th grader

Two pieces of paper.  The bottom paper has the word VOLCANO across the top and also a fill in the blank paragraph about what we learned.  (I knew we'd be spending time on our volcano drawings and so I arranged it so there was less writing involved this time around, I try my hardest to keep our group lessons at 30 minutes...though most times, like this morning, history ends up going 45-60 minutes).  They laid another piece of paper on top of their VOLCANO page and folded it down just so that it didn't cover the world VOLCANO.  They then drew an unerupted volcano on their page, going over the flap.  When they were done they opened the flap and created their erupted volcano.  We glued the volcano drawing page to the bottom of the summary page...like flap to cover the written summary.  Like I said, simple...but well enjoyed.  Actually, 2 children asked to take it further and draw the city around the base of the mountain later when they had a few minutes...I hope they do!  :-) 

 

 2nd grader

 

 

3rd grader

 2nd grader

 1st grader

 

ISBN  0-397-8866-99

This is the book that came along with the 2nd grade supplies for this particular lesson.  Check your local library...for only about $3.50 at places like Barnes and Noble or Amazon.

 

You can download our very simple notebooking page summary here.

Blend or Digraph

Over at I've Got Class, she shared an anchor chart that she created to help her students with this concept of two or more letters together, some making new sounds completely (digraph) and some we are able to hear each sound still (blend).  

Much of what I create or have the children create will be placed in their binders so I turned her anchor chart into a "notebooking page" just for L., my 1st grade student.  The more visuals the better at this stage in the game!

So a blend, like st, you can hear both sounds.  s is the cereal, so to speak, and t is the milk.  If you mix those together, you can still see the cereal and the milk.  In the blend st we can hear both the /s/ and the /t/.

 

In the digraph sh, s is the white milk and h is the chocolate syrup.  If you mix those together, you don't see the white milk, you see brown/chocolate milk.  So /sh/---makes a new sound completely.

 

Perfect for 1st grade minds!

 

Feel free to print this simple visual, for your own personal use, below...

Blend-Diagraph Notebooking Page

 

We'll be adding to this page by creating Post-It flaps for each blend/digraph we learn and sticking it to the back of this page or on another page connected to it. (A little thing I learned, run glue along the left edge of the paper (or top), press the next page to it, let dry and three hole punch it it makes it's own large flap.  Keeps like papers together.)   Post-It flaps...ah, simple!  Label the front, stick to paper, flip the flap up and write or draw pictures underneath.  So we'll write SH on the flap and underneath add pictures/stickers/words of words that have /sh/ in them.  Easy!  Perfect for review!

 

Hope you all had a lovely week!   Our school week went quite smoothly this week.  We are getting into a groove.  Now to start slipping back in the "extras" that I chose not to do this past week.  :-P

Rounding Whole Numbers

Rounding to the Nearest 10s

(but this activity can be used for most any type of rounding.)

 

With the two older students, who had not yet been accepted in MVCA, I was doing review to see where the students were at.  So, first off we did a Rounding Notebooking page.  This was a way to introduce the roller coaster/hill effect to rounding with using a number line. 

Then the children began doing some sheets to show me what they knew.  The 3rd grader was definitely not sure about rounding to the 10s place.  So I did the activity below with her.

 

I drew a hill that looked like her rounding notebook page on the magnetic dry-erase board. Then wrote the poem down that they had written down to go with their notebooking page.

Find the number,

Look right next door,

5 or more?

Raise the score!

4 or less?

Let it rest!

 

The houses were a twist from what I did with them during our place value review.

 Here it shows one house for each section.  On the board I used a house for each place.

Thousands, hundreds, tens, ones.

 

Note that I used a red roof for the 10s.  This was to remind her what we were rounding to and help her know what number was "next door".

We actually started with a single digit number and moved our way up to a 4 digit number when she was able to answer correctly and consistently.  For the pictures I used the 4 digit number but I do strongly suggest starting at just one digit, and be sure to use 4 or less and 5 or more digits in the ones place for each number of digits.  :-)  This was awesome for slipping in 'writing' numbers up to 9,999. 

 

After putting the number you are wanting to round up on the houses, then the next step is to put the number "next door" on the correct side of the hill.  Here we state "5 or more, raise the score; 4 or less, let it rest."

 

 

She knew that the last digit of the rounded number will always be zero so she put the zero in its place and then decided that she needed to "raise the score" so she brought down the 5 and put a 6 in it's place.  And then to slip in that extra "reading numbers to 9,999", she read the rounded number to me.

 

Turned into an easy and excellent, hands-on activity for rounding.  The moving of pieces really helped her understand what we were doing.  So tomorrow...she's going to get another set of numbers to round and be able to use the board if she wants, but I'm looking for her ability to round without the board.