Biome and Ecosystem Study

We are currently involved in our study of biomes and the ecosystems. We are learning about the Cycles in Nature right now, as we begin to understand how we affect the balance of nature in these cycles. By the end of our study, we will have learned about how we are related to all life on Earth and how it is a delicate balance.

As a culminating activity, we will decorate our classroom with  “Biome Mobiles” to show what we have learned about specific biomes in terms of what plant and animal life it can support, where particular biomes exist in the world, and what we can do to protect them for the communities that use the ecosystem as their habitat.

We are integrating our study of biomes with our new novel study unit, Hatchet, in which a young boy becomes stranded in northern Canada after a plane crashes. Read about the novel study in the Language Arts posts.

Language Arts Currently

 

 

 

 

We read Bridge to Terabithia as our first novel study. From this book about friendship, sharing of imagination and love, and loss of a friend, we wrote a “Summary Postcard.” You can find pictures of some of our summary postcards here. We drew pictures of one of our favorite parts of the book and wrote a summary of the book on the back of the card. These are now displayed in our classroom.

 

We also watched the movie of the book and discovered that the producer took poetic license in developing the story in film. From a list of similarities and differences that we brainstormed in groups, we wrote a comparison and contrast essay after learning how to write an essay whose purpose is to compare two different things. We found that even though there were many similarities between the book and the movie, there were also many differences.

We discovered that when one reads a book, one needs to use ones imagination, but that a movie develops the images for you. We also found that many images in our heads were sometimes supported by the film producer’s ideas, but at other times, their ideas were completely different from our own. All in all, we learned a great deal about the book and how to write both summaries and compare/contrast essays.

 Haris’s Postcard

 

Wilson’s Postcard

 

Ji Won’s Postcard