• Find time for your reading life! Find a cozy spot and read, read, read! Record your thoughts in a reading journal and track the books you are reading. List the title, author, illustrator, and some thoughts about the book. Try to increase your reading stamina each day. How many minutes can you sit and read? What is your ultimate goal??

• Choose a person to research that has contributed to their community (this activity ties to social studies). After reading and gathering information about this person, write to explain (expository/informational text) why this person is important. Make sure you have a central idea and supporting reasons. You might choose someone you know. Consider a teacher, nurse, or other community member.

• Write to explain (expository/informational text) how technology has impacted your life (this activity ties to social studies). Make sure you have a central idea and supporting reasons.

• Choose an animal to research (this activity ties to science). Read about this animal and think: What does this animal need to survive? What is its habitat like? Be sure to find information about the food web this animal is part of and the consumers and producers it needs to survive. After you have learned about this animal, write an expository text (informational) explaining what you have learned about the animal. Be sure to include how it meets its basic needs, including information about its food web. Make sure you have a central idea and supporting reasons. If you cannot research an animal, then think and write about an animal you already know a lot about.

• Compare and order decimals with the following activities: (these should go well with the Science lessons below)

  • Use these tables and answer the following questions: (see below Social Studies section)

    • List the average number of plants per square foot in order from least to greatest by state

    • Use estimation to see which state has about double the herbivores of another state

    • How many plants does Arizona have in an area of 1,000 square feet?

    • Does New York have enough plants to support the number of herbivores? Explain.

    • Compare the number of carnivores to the number of herbivores in Texas using the symbol <, >, or =.

• Record how much your parent or caregiver paid for gas for 2-3 different trips. Compare the amounts and figure out when gas was the cheapest and when it was more expensive. How much more did he/she pay one time vs. another time?

• Look at a grocery store flyer or at a recent store receipt.

  • What was the most expensive item? What was the least expensive?

  • Did you buy more than one of something (e.g. 2 boxes of cereal)-figure how much more one cost than the other.

  • If you bought produce (e.g. 4 limes for $1) figure the cost of just one item (e.g. lime).

• Math-Science connection: Write about how a food chain is like a number line.

• Cross curricular connections: We have producers and consumers in science, social studies, and math. Consider how these vocabulary words are the same and different depending on the context. (e.g. in science a goat is a consumer because he consumes or eats grass but in social studies and math a consumer is someone who purchases goods). Make a graphic organizer such as a Venn Diagram or thinking map to organize your thoughts.

Photosynthesis is the process that green plants use to make their own food. Plants take in water and carbon dioxide exhaled by animals. These are chemically changed by the Sun in the plants’ green leaves and become a sugar and oxygen that the plants release for animals to breathe. The process might look like this in an equation. What do you think ↯ represents?

Water + Carbon dioxide ↯ Sugar + Oxygen

Plants are called producers because they can make their own food with sunlight, water and carbon dioxide in a process called photosynthesis. Animals that eat plants or other animals or both are called consumers. Decomposers eat dead organisms and break down the materials and return them to the soil. Mushrooms are one type of fungus. (This activity ties to Math.)

• Copy this farmland food web on a piece of paper and label the producers, consumers and decomposers.

beetles

rabbit > coyote < frog > raccoon >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> { fungus

^ ^ worms

^ ^ beetles

grass > grasshopper > fish > duckling > snake > owl >>>> { fungus

^ v v worms

^ v v beetles

Sun > corn > chicken > fox >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> { fungus

worms

• Using the food web above, predict what would happen if the number of frogs in the ecosystem decreased. Predict what would happen if the number of grasshoppers increased. Predict what would happen if the decomposers disappeared.

A food web is all the food chains in one ecosystem or habitat.

• Create your own food web with pictures of words. It must include 4 producers and at least 7 consumers. What type of ecosystem does it represent? Remember: The direction of the arrows indicates the flow of energy from the Sun through the producers then to the consumers.

After the Revolutionary War, the new Americans found the land of the original Thirteen Colonies a bit crowded and they spilled over the Appalachian Mountains onto the land acquired from Great Britain. In 1803 the United States added 827,000 acres to the west of the Mississippi River from Frances with the Louisiana Purchase. Next Florida was added, followed by the Texas Annexation, the Oregon Country, the Mexican Cession and the Gadsden Purchase. The United States was very creative in the different ways each piece of land was acquired.

• Draw a map of the United States from memory. Label as many states, cities, landforms and bodies of water as you can remember

• Which land acquisition do you think was the most important to the United States during the 1800s? Explain your reasons.

• From the late 1700s into the 1800s, the population of the United States was on the move basically heading west across the continent. What were the reasons that led so many people to head west?

• Make a three-column chart with the titles URBAN, SUBURBAN and RURAL. List in the correct column the types of things you would expect to see in each community. Which type of community do you live in?

• How did the Industrial Revolution change life in the United States?

• Make an illustrated timeline or flowchart of the time you have been at home. Do you see a pattern?

• Go on a Scavenger Hunt in your neighborhood then talk about the items with a family member. See if you can find:

  • a flag. What different types of flags do you see? Why do people fly flags at their houses?Name the six flags that have flown over Texas.

  • a mockingbird, the state bird of Texas.

  • Texas license plates. How many different designs of the Texas plate did you see?

  • a license plate not from Texas. What state would you like to travel to? Find the other states on a map when you get back home.

  • a statue. Why is the statue there? What is the statue made of? Draw a statue that would look great in your yard.

  • a service worker, like a postman, delivery person, telephone company, plumbing company or electrical company worker. How do service workers help our community?

  • 3 different types of transportation. What is your favorite way to travel?

  • a street sign. What does the sign tell people? What might happen if there were no street signs?

  • a change in the neighborhood, like a new building or a closed store. Why did the change happen? Do you think it is a good or bad change for the neighborhood? What change would you like to see in your neighborhood?

Have fun and shoot some hoops this week! https://drive.google.com/file/d/1fyRQw1O5I3uEGje2dxBUWhkxebVRBHrm/view?usp=sharing