Short Week

Greetings,
I don't know about you, but the 4 day weekend could not have come at a better time. Things around the Champion home are kind of crazy (dealing with a little girl who is 4 going on 16, prepping the house for major renovations - new kitchen, 2 new bedrooms, and a new bath, and prepping for the arrival of new baby in about 4 months), so the extra days really helped. Even though it was a short week, I still feel like we got a good bit accomplished. I believe the highlight of the week was our trip to the Warner Park Nature Center. Please check out the slideshow of pictures on the side of the blog. The kids were extremely well-behaved and I think the guides were quite impressed with their knowledge of ecosystems and habitats. The guides did a wonderful job sharing their vast amount of knowledge with the students. If you have never been to the nature center I highly recommend taking the time to visit. Here are some more highlights from this week:

Math
The focus this week has been enrichment. Being that it was a short week, I didn't want to start on any new concepts. The students had fun working on their DynaMath this week. DynaMath is a publication filled with current events. The twist is that the publishers create problem-solving opportunities out of these events. The problems range from relatively simple to quite difficult. The students worked in pairs to complete this activity. We also had a lot of fun working on Math Races. The problems just keep getting, as Sam Strang put it, more and more "elaborate". I feel like the students are getting exposed to some really cool math concepts and I feel that the more exposure they get, the more likely they are to retain these more complex skills.

Science
We have begun, after our terrarium study, our study of specific ecosystems. The first ecosystem we are going to look at is the prairie. I think the kids have really enjoyed the technology connection this week. We will continue to do more with the Build-a-Prairie site next week. I have scheduled computer lab time for both classes in order to complete this project.

Thank you again for all that you do and I hope you have a wonderful weekend.