Spanish Fun!

Recently we came across a post written by Mrs. Yollis' class in Los Angeles, California. They talked about a story they read that included Spanish words. This was a perfect opportunity to share our learning with them. Check out this song about the weather that we learned in our Spanish class with our teacher, Señora Sullivan.

El Tiempo

Hace buen tiempo, hace calor, hace fresco, hace sol
Hace mal tiempo, hace frio, esta nublado, hace viento, esta nevando,
esta lloviendo, hay tormenta, hay graniza

El Tiempo
Buen Tiempo
Mal Tiempo

La temperatura es muy caliente, hace muy buen tiempo.
La temperatura es muy fria hace muy mal tiempo
Hace sol y hace calor, hace muy buen tiemop
Hace frio y hace viento, hace muy mal tiempo

Buen Tiempo
Mal Tiempo
Buen Tiempo
Mal Tiempo

Que tiempo hace hoy?
Hace_______________ Hace_________________
Esta ________________ Esta________________

The Weather

There is good weather, It's hot, It's cool, Its sunny.
There is bad Weather, It's cold, cloudy, windy, snowing, raining,
storming, hailing.

The Weather.
Good Weather.
Bad Weather.

The temperature is hot, its good weather.
The temperature is cold, its bad weather.
The temperature is hot, its good weather.
The temperature is cold and its windy, it's bad weather.

Good Weather
Bad Weather
Good Weather
Bad Weather

What is the weather today?

Skyping with Mrs. V!

Today our 2nd grade Rocketeers had a very special call with their 1st grade teacher, Mrs. Velichkovski. She is now living and teaching in Belgrade, Serbia at an international school. We talked about how much we miss her and asked her questions about her school in Serbia. Here is what we learned from our call:

• Serbia is in Europe. 
• The time in Serbia is 6 hours ahead of us. When we talked to her, it was morning here and afternoon there. 
• They have a lot of snow. Mrs. V. told us that they had several snow storms this winter. It was also one of the coldest winters in a long time. 
• Their school was a house, but now they turned it into a school!  
• They have about 35 students in the whole school. Each class has about 5 or 6 students. Their whole school is about the size of one of our classes at our school! 
• Their school has students from different countries. They learn English at school and speak different languages at home.  

We had a great time meeting Mrs. Velichkovski's students and talking to her. We miss her very much! Here are some questions that we didn't get a chance to ask. Would you and your students please reply to us? We would love to learn more about your school, students, and life in Serbia.

1. I saw flowers and other things on the wall. Did you let your students draw those? (Max) 
2. How many rooms do you have in your school? (Lisa) 
3. How big is your classroom? (Micah)
4. How did you learn about that school? (Jazlyn)
5. Do you have famous artists in Serbia? (Alyssa)
6. Do your students have relatives in other countries? (Alyssa)
7. What are your students' families like? (Alyssa) 
8. What are your students' favorite foods? (Lisa)
9. What kind of games do your students like to play? (Lisa)
10. Do you have a Spring Planting Day at your school? (Lisa)
11. What kind of work do you do in your class? (Trey)
12. When are you coming back to visit? (Trey) 

Have a look at some clips from our call below.

Virtual Career Interview with Mr. Christian Poon

This semester our 5th grade Rocketeers have been exploring and researching future career options. When we  discovered that one of our Rocketeers had a relative who is currently working in South Korea, we decided to compile some interview questions for him to learn more about his career. We hope you enjoy our interview with Mr. Christian Poon!

Here is what we learned from our interview: 

• He grew up in Canada but his parents are from China. 
• He studied in Niagra University in New York. 
• He has a master's degree, which allows him to teach in most states in the United States and several provinces in Canada. 
• He teaches English to teachers in South Korea.
• He loves working with people. 
• He teaches about 2-3 classes a day and gets new students each month. 
• He realized he spoke too fast when he first started teaching English. 
• He likes to be creative in his teaching and keep things interesting. 

We would like to thank Mr. Poon for taking the time to answer our questions. We not only learned about the ins and outs of his job but also took away some great advice about careers. A big kudos also goes out to Janiya, Jerykah, and Morgan for writing this post! They did a wonderful job in summarizing the key points of our interview.

Estimation Station Video

Here is a video our TEA Timers made for Mrs. Musone's class. They wanted to estimate the items in our picture, so we decided to provide them with a little more information. We learned that the difference between a guess and an estimate is that in order to make an estimate, you need some information. Thanks for participating, Mrs. Musone's class! We hope you enjoy our video like we enjoyed yours.

Would you like to make estimations, too? Leave us a comment to tell us how close your estimates were! 

Estimator's Competition

This week our TEA Timers have been practicing estimating sums of two and three digit numbers. We came across the PBS game, Glowla's Estimation Contraption, to put our estimating skills to the test. In this game, you are given 60 seconds to estimate the sum of several numbers. The more correct estimates you make, the higher you move up in the levels. We found out that rounding helps us make better estimates. The difficult part is trying to beat the clock!

We are challenging another 3rd grade class to estimate with us via Skype. Each class will need to create their own equations (about 3-4) beforehand and have the estimates of their sums ready. The other class, will have 60 seconds to provide an estimate of the sum. Points will be awarded on how close each class was to the estimate.

Are you up for the challenge?