Weekly Update 12/2/11 by Katherine F., Stephen M., Eddie M., & Lauren T.

In LA we just finished reading Maniac Magee.  It was sad but good.  We wrote summaries and made inferences for each section, and in WEX we are writing about Maniac's character traits using quotes from the book for evidence.  

Stephen and Eddie holding copies of Maniac Magee.

In social studies we are learning about Mesopotamia.  We learned about how the first cities developed, and we did a simulation of what it was like to live in ancient Mesopotamia.  We brainstormed ways that Mesopotamians could solve problems such as food shortages and how to maintain their water supplies.   

Map of Mesopotamia

Irrigation System

In math we covered exponents and powers, monomials and the disibility rules.  We know how to quickly figure out if 2,452 is evenly divisible by 9.  Can you?

In science we are learning about smells and how a scent goes through the air.  We are learning about the three phases of matter.  We also discovered that air has mass.  Here are Mili and Kevin explaining how mass and weight are different.

 In Community Project we are making good progress on solving our problems.  Some of us are  ready to put our creative plans into action.

Jake, Gina Morgan, Matt, and Sammi are making posters and flyers for the food drive to be held in January 
for Wheeling Township Pantry.

Mick, David, Katherine, and Lauren are emailing authors and preparing book order flyers 
to raise money for books to donate to Patton's library.

On Monday during the staff meeting some of us are presenting about Sigma to the rest of the teachers at Thomas.  We are going to tell everyone about the interesting, fun new things Sigma does.  We have been working hard during lunch on our slideshow and presentation.  Do you notice anything about how we made our Sigma sign below?

In drama we have been learning how to mime, including using exaggerated gestures and facial expressions.   We were given a scenario and had to act out our mime skit with no rehearsal.  Here are some of our impromptu mime performances.  Can you guess what we are doing?

Jasmine

Mick

Max

David R.

Josh

Future Sigmian?  This is Nicholas's adorable little sister Natalie at conferences last week 
checking out our blog on a laptop.