This morning we finished watching a video from PBS on adapatations: https://www.pbs.org/video/natureworks-adaptation/. Arianna was able to demonstrate her understanding of the unit vocabulary and concepts, including behavioral and structural adaptations, environment, and function. At the end of the session, I asked Arianna to select a learning video from a playlist and she asked to learn more about the giant pacific octopus. This animal has many unique adaptations that we learned about and discussed.
I shared my screen with Arianna and opened her page on the student website. I had Arianna open the page editor of the dancer page and write a two sentence description of Ariana Grande's dancing ability. Arianna was then tasked with searching for a YouTube video of Ariana Grande dancing and six images related to six of her videos. I assisted Arianna in resizing the images and uploading them to the webpage. Arianna saved her work for the next class.
Arianna did an acting scavenger hunt game and then a commercial. She did an improv scene. She also did a "show-and-tell" activity. We watched the beginning of a Broadway production of Cats. We continued reading from the Harry Potter script.
Arianna and I continued yesterday's lesson on how to relate fractions and decimals. She took given fractions, mixed numbers, and decimals and wrote their equivalent amounts in other ways. Quick pictures were used to model whole amounts and the fraction of the wholes. Then, we looked at how fractions and decimals can name a distance on number lines by dividing the distance into equal parts represented by the denominator of fractions or the place value of decimals. Arianna finished with basic addition and subtraction facts mental minutes and quick quizzes on equal parts and seasons.
This morning, Arianna and I discussed adaptations and how animals sometimes modify their environments using their special adaptations. We first discussed the beaver and it's ability to create dams to modify their habitat: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zm6X77ShHa8. We also began (but did not finish) an informative video on adaptations by PBS:
https://www.pbs.org/video/natureworks-adaptation/
Arianna recapped the events in chapter 13 for me before reading chapter 14 of Harry Potter. As she read, she made some strong inferences and predictions about Professor Lupin and Sirius Black. For a change of pace, she played a working memory game on Lumosity and then returned to her journal to write a new entry about her perspective on COVID-19.
Today's lesson looked at how fractions and decimals can be used to name the same amounts. We reviewed decimals to the tenths and hundredths place and how they represent a whole broken into ten or one hundred equal parts. Then from given decimals, fractions, or mixed numbers, Arianna wrote the equivalent amounts. She also wrote a decimal and fraction for the part of shaded grids. Finally, mental math minutes were completed as well as a quick quiz on shape faces and a review of multiplication and division facts.
Today marks the 50th Earth Day celebration! To celebrate, I asked each student to select their topic of study today. Arianna asked to learn more about turtles. We were able to join a live virtual event hosted by Mote Marine Lab & Aquarium to learn about different types of turtles.
