Seeing our food in a whole new way

Today we worked on some very fun projects, and drew others closer to their completion. We put particular focus on the great homework the students did over the weekend, wherein they analyzed nutritional information labels and answered some questions. Students were very surprised by what they found in many cases, and it sparked some great discussion and further learning.

This link goes to a great nutrition calculator that we will be using in the next few weeks:

http://nutritiondata.self.com/

This link was one we were using today. It shows the nutritional information for many things available at popular fast food chains.

http://www.acaloriecounter.com/fast-food.php

I also gave them a chance to look through the nutritional information sheets from the school's cafeteria, which I requested last year. I think that this is a good age for kids to become increasingly aware of the quality and quantity of their nutrient/calorie intake, so they can start to make their own good choices. We will be doing more work throughout our current chapters in science and health, and I hope to put particular focus on local and sustainable foods.

I will be sending home a worksheet later on this week (perhaps Wednesday) to gauge students' current understanding of our geometry unit in math. I am happy with their progress, so I think that a bit more time spent and formal evaluation given will allow me to wrap it up soon. Once we finish this unit we will be moving on to multiplication of 2-3 digit numbers. I will be assigning weekly homework assignments to help students brush up on their "times tables", since knowing them in greater detail is a huge benefit to their in-class work.

We started leaning about onomatopoeia today, which is a form of poetry that uses free verse (no rhyming) and focuses on "sound" words. The kids did an incredible job with these poems, and were very excited to do more (hence the focus of tonight's homework)! Here is a link to help remind students of the structure and contents of onomatopoeia if they need a refresher:

http://www.buzzle.com/articles/examples-of-onomatopoeia.html

A notice went home today, announcing that this Thursday's PD has been postponed. Sorry if this causes any inconviences, but there was apparently a major scheduling conflict at the board level.

Have a lovely evening, and speak to you all again soon.