Musical History: The Beatles
After reading aloud the AR book, The Beatles by Mike Venezia, we listened to samples of this music. Keep reading to find out what we heard!
We heard samples of The Beatles’ early music, including “I Saw Her Standing There” and “Can’t Buy Me Love.”
Selections from the 1965 “Rubber Soul” we heard as well, such as “Baby You Can Drive My Car” and “Nowhere Man.”
My personal favorite, “Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band,” was also heard. The sad “She’s Leaving Home” was a big contrast to the playful “Lucy in the Sky With Diamonds.” Some students recognized traditionally Indian instruments in “Within You, Without You.” Many agreed that “For the Benefit of Mr. Kite” sounded much like a circus.
1969′s “Abbey Road” seemed to be a favorite with the class. The bizarre & wacky “Maxwell Silver Hammer” got some laughs. “Here Comes the Sun” was another fun song.
The Beatles’ last album recorded together in 1970 was “Let it Be.” Students recognized the frustration in “I Me Mine” and recognized the popular song “Let it Be.”
What have you learned about The Beatles? Click “comments” below to submit your thoughts on our short study of this historic band.
What effects concentration?
This year, we are entering a class project in the science fair. After considering a number of possible questions to research, we finally settled on “What effects concentration?”
Our next step was to brainstorm factors that might positively impact concentration, as well as factors that might have a negative effect. We narrowed our long lists and then voted on which experiments to actually try. (Keep reading to find out which 10 we’ll be testing!)
So what will we be concentrating on? Students will have 4 minutes to complete a 49-item math drill with multiple operations: addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. There will be several versions of this drill so that accidental memorization does not effect results. Then, the drills will be scored and only the class’s average will be used as data, not individual student scores.
Additionally, we’ll create bar graphs where students state their hypotheses by placing a photo of themselves over the factor which they believe will have the greatest impact on concentration. Doing this will create the bars for the graph and there will be a graph for each: positive factors and negative factors.
And now, drum roll please…
Factors to be tested which might have a negative impact:
*tv on
*pencil tapping
*stinky feet (students’ idea!)
*cold / uncomfortable enviroment
*loud music
Factors to be tested which might have a positive impact:
*zero noise / zero talking
*eat a mint
*take a break in the middle
*increase reward / motivation
*classical music
Stay tuned for more updates on our project’s creation.
The science fair is Thursday, February 18th. Bundle up and walk on down with the whole family. There will be lots to see and do.
Is this an AR book?
If you have a book and you’re not sure if it’s an AR book, now you can find out- even when you’re not at school! On the left side of our class blog, under “Open Court and AR” you’ll find a link to “AR Book List.” Click the link and click on a grade level to discover a list of all AR books for that level. If you don’t find your book under 5th grade, try other grade levels. Hooray!
The cut-off for grades and AR points for the 2nd trimester is February 19th. Twenty points are needed by then. AR is worth 20% of your grade for reading. Happy reading!
Gardening & the Economy
When the going gets tough, the tough get gardening.
I have a garden in my backyard. Although the bulk of my harvest has been tomatoes and basil, I am also growing galangal: a ginger-like root aromatic used in Thai and Hmong cooking.
I come home from work everyday, greet the kitties, then go out back. I turn on the green garden hose and glide around my plants, peeking at new tomato babies and adoring basil sprouts.
Around this time, the kitties come join me. Bobby Socks flops down in the sunshine (when she can find it) and Blanca hunts for bugs and scrambles around in crunchy leaves.
Maybe I had a challenging day at work, or maybe I’ve just come to expect that every day will be challenging. But in that garden, I love everything and all is right with the planet. I seemingly give the garden little more than water. But in return, I get my sanity back.
And fresh tomatoes.