Category Archives: Social Studies
Young Entrepreneurs here in Charlotte!
Hornets Nest Elementary, has three young entrepreneurs who are making a big difference at their school! Aiden, Joel and Logan have planted a “Helping Fields” garden, where students can pick fresh vegetables to eat over the weekend. They have entered their helpful idea in a contest held buy United States entrepreneur Warren Buffet. These eight and nine year olds have made it to the final three in the contest! Cast your votes for these smart kids before midnight to help them win the grand prize!
VOTE HERE:
http://smckids.com/learnandearn/team-finalists and vote for Choice #1, Helping Fields
Click here to see the boys on the news!
The Sheep are Making a Comeback!
As we continue studying current events this week we are going to look deeper into the text features that help us understand what we’re reading. Like we’ve learned before, text features are anything other than the main paragraphs of the text, that help us better understand the author’s intended message. Today, we are going to read a Newsela.com article on the Bighorn sheep in California. These sheep had almost become extinct and only 105 were left. Now there are 500 sheep! Read the article to discover how scientists helped save the Bighorn sheep!
The article comes with a great map to help you understand where these sheep are located. Study the map and see what you notice. Is there a key or legend to help you out? Do the different colors and shadings mean anything? Is it important to read the text on the map as well?
Today, as you read from a Scholastic News magazine of your choice, notice how the text features help you better understand the text!
Current Events!
We have gone current events crazy in room B11! This week we have read several news articles on topics currently happening around the world. There is so much going on out there! Here are two more articles for you to read.
Check out these headlines about children around the world:
Cheating on Big Tests in India to get the best Scores
No Grades in this Classroom!
As always, you can check out more about what is going on in the world at Newsela.com!
Do our Words Really Matter?
We know that our actions can hurt other people. If I hit or pinch someone I can immediately see the hurt on their face. But what about our words? Can our words hurt others? Can our words really cause any true problems? NBA Clippers owner, Donald Sterling, learned a lesson about using kind words this week. He lost his job and can never be a part of NBA basketball for the rest of his life because of things he said. You can read more on this topic here.
So what do you think, can words hurt as much as a punch or pinch?
What if you couldn’t go to school?
On my favorite nonfiction reading for kids website, Newsela.com, there is an interesting article on children in Afghanistan who can’t afford to go to school. Read the article and let me know what you think. Can you imagine not being able to go to school? How would that change your life?
Shukriya, 8, sells toilet paper in downtown Kabul, Afghanistan. Although child labor is illegal in the country, it is still around today, due to a lack of enforcement and the need of many families to have as many members earning income as possible.
Did you Watch the Superbowl?!
Did you watch the Superbowl (the halftime show is actually playing while I type this!) If you watched the Superbowl, you should have noticed that the Broncos and the Seahawks were playing in New York City. We have been reading and studying Sky Boys, by Deborah Hopkinson and James E. Ransome. From reading this book we have learned about New York City in the 1930s. Tonight, on the Superbowl TV coverage, you may have noticed the main subject of Sky Boys, the Empire State Building. What we’re learning about in class is out there in the real world! Crazy! Check out the great Empire State Building website above!
The beautiful Empire State Building lights up in different colors at night!
Here is the picture I promised you! The Sky Boys enjoy their lunches and take a break from work high above NYC, as progress on the Empire State Building continued!
Happy Birthday Dr. King!
Yesterday, we finished reading the interactive e-biography of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. and today, January 15th, is Dr. King’s birthday! Our interactive biography contained the entire “I Have a Dream” speech that Dr. King gave in front of the Lincoln Memorial in Washington D.C. We have been badly wanting to hear the speech, so here are some of the greatest highlights from Dr. King’s speech.
The Fifty Nifty United States!
Our blog has been visited by 36 of our amazing 50 states! We have been marking our blog visitors on a map on our wall. We are still waiting for visits from the following states: Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, West Virginia, Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Montana, Wyoming, New Mexico, Hawaii, and Alaska! (Why isn’t the mid-west visiting our blog?)
We realized some of these state’s names are hard to say and even harder to read. The following song is a great way to memorize the states’ names to make them easier to attack when we read articles!
We have also had many visitors from planet’s other countries!
Staying Safe on the Internet!
We have been doing a lot of internet research online! It’s important that when we are online we are being very careful to keep ourselves and our families safe!