Mrs. Comincioli's Classroom Corner

I can’t believe we’ve been in school for over a month now. The time is going by so fast and we’ve been really busy! I apologize for not keeping our blog updated. We need to catch you up on all the fantastic things we’ve been doing in our classroom.

MI Day
We started out the year with MI Day. We spent a whole day learning about the different multiple intelligences and finding out which ones we are good at. The day was based around plants and animals and we had a blast traveling from station to station! We also took an online quiz in tech class and created a graph of our strengths and weaknesses with the multiple intelligences.

Lincoln Park Zoo
The intermediate classes took a field trip to the Lincoln Park Zoo in Chicago. Before our trip, we worked with our groups to create a map of what we wanted to see while we were there. That day we visited the animals we were interested in and took notes on each one. We will use this information when we write our animal research project later this year. We saw many fascinating animals, including the snow leopard, the lions, polar bear, and the penguins.

Camp Duncan
The 5th grade students had an overnight outdoor educational field trip to Camp Duncan in early October. They spent Thursday and Friday learning doing team building activities, tye-dying t-shirts, and learning about the outdoor wilderness. They really enjoyed the camp fire and staying in cabins! The 4th graders worked with other 4th grade students in the building those two days. They practiced their geography skills by creating maps of “lost” islands. They also watched a fascinating movie about energy called “City of Ember”. It’s based on a really interesting chapter book you might enjoy!

Themes
This year we started off the year studying economics. We learned about supply and demand, goods and services, producers and consumers. We will be applying what we’ve learned throughout the year as we do some fund-raising for our school. We are now studying light, color, and electricity. So far, we’ve learned about reflection, refraction, opaque, transparent, and translucent. We’ve done some amazing experiments in the science lab. We learned how fiber optics work and we created concave and convex lenses.

Goals
We also took our beginning of the year MAPs test for Reading, Math, and Language. We are using that information to write our goals for this year. We’ve been working hard on our power points for triad conferences which are coming up Nov. 11th and 12th. We can’t wait to show you what we’ve accomplished!

So far our year is off to a great start! We are going to make it a priority to update our blog as much as possible, so please be sure to check back each week! We hope to hear lots of positive comments from everyone and find new and interesting blogs to follow this year!

We’ve been studying the human body the past few weeks. Students have been working in groups to become “experts” on a particular system in the human body. Today we did an experiment using a “pulse-o-meter”, which is made of a ball of clay and a toothpick. You place the toothpick in the ball of clay and then put it on your wrist. As your pulse beats, the toothpick moves. You have to watch carefully to see it though! We counted each movement for 15 seconds and then multiplied by four. This gave us the heart beats per minute, which is your pulse!

We did various activities, such as jumping jacks, standing still, sit-ups, running in place, etc. We took our pulse after each activity and then worked with a partner to create a double-bar graph with the information. We found that the more activity you do, the higher your pulse is because your heart is beating faster and getting that blood pumping through your body.

Immigration Day was a success! We started out the day by purchasing a ticket to get on the boat. Students sat in a “boat” to see what it was like to sit in the steerage section.

Then we listened to a fabulous speaker. He taught us a lot about Ireland and the potato famine during the 1800s.

Next, we arrived at Ellis Island. Throughout the simulation, students traveled as families from various European countries to America. They were immigrating to American through Ellis Island during the late 1800s-early 1900s. As they entered our Ellis Island, they had to wait in long lines in the Great Hall. Each family had to go through five stations. At the baggage station, an inspector searched their bundles. In the medical station, they were examined to make sure they were healthy. As students waited in lines, some of them were tagged with various medical problems. Some were sent to the detention area because of the problems they were tagged with or medical problems that might of arose during the exam. Families were also interrogated at the legal inspection station. Their passports were reviewed and they were asked a variety of questions. Some included – “Why are you traveling to America?”; “What will you do for money?”; “How old are you?”; “What country are you from?”; and “Who do you know in America?” If they weren’t able to answer the questions, off to the detention area they went! The detention supervisor kept the students for a short time and then sent them back to their families. Families then went to the money exchange to trade in their native money for American dollars. The immigrants quickly learned that it was not an equal trade in and they usually ended up with less money than they started with. At the last station, they purchased their ferry boat tickets to travel to either New Jersey or Manhattan.

Throughout the day we also experience other activities that were popular for immigrants during this time period. We listened to a wonderful storyteller who told us a story of an immigrant coming over during the early 1900s. We played games, such as marbles, jacks, and cat’s cradle. Students created an Irish blessing box and a traditional folk art paper design from Poland called Wycinanki.

It was great to see the students dressed up and having such a wonderful experience! Thank you again to all of the parent and teacher volunteers. We couldn’t have done it without you!

Immigration Day is fast approaching.  It will be Tuesday, April 14th from 8:00-10:45 am.  We are in need of parent volunteers to help with the Ellis Island stations.  Please let me know if you are able to volunteer!