We also learned that there are three types of rocks: Igneous, Sedimentary, and Metamorphic.

*

Rocks are classified as igneous, sedimentary, or metamorphic depending on how they form.

Here is a video with three students and our good friend Perezoso the sloth that explains how these different rocks are formed. We hope you like it!

(A special thanks to Nora’s 1st grade brother for being the voice of Perezoso!)

*

What was your favorite thing about the video?

What is something you learned from the video?

Can you explain how the different rocks are formed?

*

I have practices every week and I practice hard. I play striker. It is also known as center forward. Striker is an offence position. It is in the middle of forward. My team is fun to practice and play with. My coaches give me encouragement and tell me to “practice the way you play.”

Communicating with my teammate

We have games most weekends. I play spring soccer and fall soccer. Spring soccer is the most fun because I like playing outside. Our colors are red and white. The shirt is red, and the number is white. Also, our team is too big so we divided it into two teams. One is the red team, one is the white team. I am on the red team.

Playing a little defense

I mostly focus on scoring goals and improving my kick when I practice. My dad is the coach of my sister’s team and he helps me train. I like to practice with my friends at my house. My sister (Margot) helps me and practices with me, too. I just really love soccer and have too many reasons to explain it!

*

Chelsea FC

Chelsea FC (football club) is my favorite team. Chelsea is a British league team based in Fulham, London. They play in the premier league. Their home field is the 41,837 seats Stamford Bridge stadium.

My favorite team

Chelsea FC’s main rivalries are (these are not in order) Manchester United, Arsenal, and Tottenham Hotspur. Frank Lampard is my favorite player on Chelsea. Here is a link to the official Chelsea fc website. As you can see, I really like this team!

*

Lionel Messi

Lionel Messi is my favorite player. He plays for Barcelona FC and Argentina. Luis Lionel Andres Messi was born on June 24, 1987 in Rosario, Argentina. As a boy he played with his brothers and friends playing soccer. He has 2 brothers, Rodrigo and Matias and one sister named Maria Sol.

My favorite player

The Barcelona team is lucky to have him as a teammate. In March 2010, France Football ranked Lionel Messi at the top of it’s lists of one of the world’s richest soccer players/footballers, above Cristiano Ronaldo and David Beckham. Here’s a link to the official Barcelona fc website. Lionel Messi worked hard to be at the top of professional soccer/football, and now he is there.

Soccer is not just a sport, it is life.

*

Do you have a favorite soccer/football team?

Who is your favorite soccer/football player? (if you have one)

What sport do you like to play?

*

*

So we now have our Final Four poems to decide which will be the champion of the whole tournament.

The final poems are: Monster Mothers read by Piper, Mosquito read by Wynn, Jabberwocky read by Sean, and Smart read by Nora.

Here they are. Listen and then vote for your choice of which one should be the champion poem for 2013.

*

Which poem did you pick? Why?

What was your favorite thing about our Poetry madness tournament?

Do you have a poem of your own to share? If so, leave it as a comment!

We had a total of 78 votes and 38 of them (49%) were for Smart. Weather was in second place with 21 votes.

*

*

Now it’s time for round 4 to see which is the final poem to join Monster Mothers, Mosquito, and Smart in the final four! 

Here are the next four poems to vote on. They are read by Maddie & Cayla, Sean, Daniela, and Trey:

*

*

Which poem did you vote for this week? Why?

How was our reading?

Amethyst – “purple quartz”

Properties of Rocks

Mr. Dewire told us that there are six properties that we can use to tell rocks apart. Remember, we already learned that properties are ways of describing things in science. So here are the six ways to describe rocks and tell them apart:

• COLOR – the colors of a rock can tell us a lot about what kind of rock it is. Some are very dark, some are almost white, and some are a mix of many colors.

Rainbow of Rocks

• TEXTURE – The way a rock feels is a very important property. They can be smooth, rough, sandy, glassy, or even slippery (soapstone).

• LUSTER – This is a cool property. It means how much a rock shines and sparkles. Rocks with a high luster shine a lot! Rocks with a low luster are dull.

See the sparkles?

• HARDNESS – Some rocks are super hard and can cut glass and steel. Other rocks are very soft and can crumble when you scrape them.

• STREAK – Another way to tell rocks apart is what color streak they make when you scrape them on a white “streak stone.” Some don’t make a streak at all, while some are red, brown, white, or black.

Even though this rock was tan, it left a black streak

• MAGNETIC – Whether or not a rock is magnetic is another way to tell rocks apart. Most aren’t, but some are. I wonder why?

*

Rocks of Connecticut

We also got to see some of Connecticut’s most common rocks. They are:

Granite

GRANITE – The most common rock in Connecticut. It is the rock that is used in all the stone walls we have throughout the area.

Feldspar

FELDSPAR – Another common rock. You can tell it by its chunks of pinkish/orange.

Milky Quartz

MILKY QUARTZ

Rose Quartz

ROSE QUARTZ – Unlike milky quartz, which is mostly white, rose quartz has a pink hue

Schist

SCHIST – Sometimes called the “look-alike rock” because it looks similar to granite, schist is much softer. You can chip grains off of it with your fingernail

Mica

MICA – A see-through rock? Mica is very cool! It peels off in layers that are transparent. It used to be used for windows before glass became affordable.

*

What is the difference between rocks and minerals?

What are the rocks like where you live?

If you’ve ever found a cool rock, tell us about it.

In Mr. Salsich’s class, we have really enjoyed all the great posts about animals from around the world on Our World Our Numbers over the last few weeks!

We wanted to add a post about some animals from Connecticut, but couldn’t decide on which local animals to talk about (there are so many!) So we decided to share information about our state mammal, the sperm whale, even though we don’t really see them here in Connecticut.

Some sperm whale numbers

*

Sperm whales are amazing animals. They aren’t the biggest whales in the world (the blue whale is much bigger), but they are the largest of the toothed whales. 

Sperm whales do hold some other “records” though;

1. They have the heaviest brain of any animal (five times heavier than a human brain), 
2. They produce the loudest sounds of any animal, and 
3. They can dive deeper than any other mammal.

*

We made a VoiceThread about sperm whales and the incredible number facts that help to explain them. We tried to compare some of these numbers to a typical 3rd grade student (8-9 years old). We hope you enjoy the VoiceThread!

(You can watch it in a larger format here.)

*

(Sperm whales are massive, but blue whales are even bigger! Here is a link to an amazing interactive about blue whales from national Geographic.)

*

What was the most interesting fact you learned about sperm whales?

If a blue whale weighs over 200 tons, how much heavier than a sperm whale are they? About how many sperm whales would it take to equal that weight? About how many African elephants would it take to equal that weight?

A blue whale can be 100 feet long. How many sperm whales would it take to equal that length?

Do you know any other interesting information about whales?

We had a total of 86 votes and 47 of them (55%) were for Mosquito. 

*

*

Now it’s time for round 3 to see which is the next poem to join Monster Mothers and Mosquito in the final four! 

Here are the next four poems to vote on. They are read by Nora, Kali, Grant, and Natalia:

*

Which poem did you vote for this week? Why?

How was our reading?

making molas

*

Molas are a type of applique art made by the Kuna Indians of the San Blas Islands in Panama.

San Blas Islands, Panama

Applique art is when you put layers of material on top of one another to make a design or a pattern.

The Kuna Indians make applique molas by sewing pieces of colorful fabric on top of other pieces to make beautiful designs. The designs of molas usually have subjects that are inspired by nature. Here are some examples that Ms. Conway shared with us:

Molas from Panama

And here is a picture of a Kuna woman showing her molas in Panama:

Kuna woman with molas

*

We didn’t use fabric and sewing to make our molas. Instead, we cut designs and patterns out of construction paper and glued the layers together. We had to cut out each new layer and then glue it onto another piece of colored paper.

Cutting out the layers

Here is a slide show of some of our molas:

*

(Here is a link to learn more about molas and the Kuna Indians, with directions for making your own paper mola at home.)

*

What do you think of our molas?

Have you ever seen a real mola from Panama?

What kind of art do you enjoy doing?

*

During Poetry Madness we have been working on reading with fluency. Poetry is a great way to practice fluent reading. Reading fluently means:

• Reading smoothly at the right PACE – not too slow, not too fast, and not choppy.

• Reading with EXPRESSION – changing your voice to make the reading sound interesting.
  

• Paying attention to PUNCTUATION -stopping at periods, slowing down at commas and line breaks, and sounding excited at exclamation points.

• Reading with good PHRASING – make the reading sound like natural talking.

*

This week we have four new poems to vote on. They are read by Alicia, Bennett, Wynn, and Sophia. 

Which poem will join Monster Mothers in the final four? You decide! Have a listen and then vote for your choice.

Which poem did you choose? Why?

How was our reading?

Do you have a favorite poet or poem that we might enjoy?

*

When I went to SeaWorld to see the Shamu Show, I didn’t really see the real Shamu Show. Instead, I saw the Baby Shamu Show because on Valentine’s Day a baby orca whale was born. I didn’t really see it until my mom pointed it out. It was so small, about the size of a dolphin. The baby swam so close to its mother so that you could only see it a little when it came up for air.

Sea World

Before the show started people walked around the stadium selling stuff like popcorn, kettle corn, and soda. We didn’t get any of that. As we watched the show, they said that the baby does not know how to turn or stop swimming, so the mother couldn’t stop for food. They thrust the fish into her mouth while she swam past them.

*

The day after I went to SeaWorld, I went to LegoLand, a world of Legos.  There I drove a Volvo made out of legos (obviously!).

Lego Car

I drove a red car while Luke, my brother, drove a blue one.  It was a 45 minute wait, but we did it anyway.  This was exciting to me because when we were younger we went to LegoLand and did the drive for little kids. Now we were back and could do the driving for bigger kids.  On our way from the “Coastasauras” ride we saw a little shop.  My Baba pointed out a Lego Harry Potter and Lego Hagrid.

Lego Hagrid

I started looking for Lego Harry Potter stuff but I had no luck.

*

At Roppongi, a fancy Asian restaurant, we tried some delicious foods like crabstack, sushi, and a wonderful tasting shrimp and crab roll.

Sushi 

The yellowtail sushi tasted like soft and salty raw fish with a little bitterness.  I also tried the shrimp and crab roll which is shrimp and crab rolled up with sushi rice, seaweed and topped with avocado and fish eggs and a special sauce.  I had two big bites.  I did not eat any of the crabstack.

*

I went to the Children’s Pool in La Jolla.  It had seals that were giving birth.  A baby seal we saw was crying for its mommy who was out swimming in search of food.  The little baby tried to swim, but he did not know how to.  A big lazy, chubby seal taking a nap on the rocks grunted as the baby seal cried for it’s mommy like a real baby. “MOM-ma! MOM-ma!” it said.

Chubby Seal

*

We visited the World Famous San Diego Zoo in San Diego, California.  There we saw a baby panda with its mother.  The baby panda was so popular that they even made a panda gift shop!  

Baby panda and mother

Before we saw the pandas in “Panda Canyon” we saw a big gorilla getting fed.  Zookeepers threw down big chunks of lettuce for the five gorillas.  The gorilla ate from a big bunch of lettuce in his hand.  He held it with his other hand, taking the lettuce and shoving it in his mouth.

Snack Time!

*

What did you think about my post?

Have you ever been to any of these places? If not, which one would you most like to visit?