Niches in Ecosystems

Today we learned about niches in ecosystems. An animal's niche is like its job in the ecosystem. We watched two different sites to talk about niches.

Big Cat Diary: These animals live in the grasslands of Africa. Which animals are predators? Which are prey? How are the predators different from one another?




Cornell Feeder Cam: Here you can observe birds at a feeder in real time. What birds do you observe? How do they have different niches?

Here is a video showing two ruffed grouses visiting the feeder. The ruffed grouse is the state bird of Pennsylvania.

Snowflakes and Scissors

You can read along with our homework story for the week with this link:

Help Snow Leopards

You can help snow leopards! Use this citizen science tool to identify species. Be sure to read the directions carefully.

Snow leopard cam

Literature Circle and Guided Reading Books

We are having fun with our new books! Here are some additional resources to go along with each book. You can explore the resources that go with your book, or check the resources for another book that you may read someday.

The Memory Coat
In this book, Grisha and his family immigrate to the United States. They stop at Ellis Island on the way. What is Ellis Island like? Find out with this tour!

Interactive tour of Ellis Island

City Green
In this story, Marcy and her neighbors turn an abandoned empty lot into a beautiful garden. Try your hand at gardening with this virtual garden!

Virtual Garden

Dragonfly's Tale
Dragonfly's Tale is a folktale from the Zuni tribe of the American Southwest. You can read other folktales and fables at the Between the Lions site.

Fables and folktales

Sam the Minuteman
This book takes place during the Revolutionary War. Learn more about colonial times with activities from Colonial Williamsburg.

Tour the Town

You can also take a virtual tour of some of the locations included in the book.

Virtual Tour

Keep the Lights Burning, Abbie
In this book, a young girl braves terrible weather to keep the lamps of a lighthouse burning. You can see the real Matinicus Island and other lighthouses with this lighthouse website.

New England's Lighthouses

Project Puffin
Today, the island that Abbie's lighthouse stood upon is a sanctuary for puffins. Learn more about puffins and the Maine coastline at Project Puffin.

Project Puffin

Weslandia
Wesley creates his own civilization in this book. Learn about the ancient civilization of Rome to think about how it compares to Wesley's civilization.

Roman civilization

My Rotten Red-Headed Older Brother
Patricia Polacco has written many books for young readers. Learn more about this author and her books at her website.

Patricia Polacco

Map Activities

We're learning about maps! Use these links to find fun map interactives and learn more about maps.

Geography Games
Visit this site for a wide variety of geography games. (There are ads on this site.)

GIS in Action
What is GIS? How can it help us to learn about the world? Visit this site to find out!

GeoGames
Build planet Earth! Spin the globe, place continents, and find countries and cities.

Latitude and Longitude Game
Use latitude and longitude to find treasure.

Tide Pool Videos

We have been working on daily sentence lessons focusing on tide pools. Here is a playlist of videos starring our tide pool friends:

Learning about Classification

This week, we have been learning about the processes that scientists use. One of our science skills is classification. Students learned that classification is the process of putting things into organized groups.

This PowerPoint was used in class to talk about different kinds of classification:

After learning about classification, we tried classifying different items. Kids really liked using the trinket bags to classify. These little bags of various items are based on an item called Think-ets. Students came up with many different ways to classify the items in the bags.

Then, students classified liquids using litmus paper. We tested various liquids to find out if they were acids or not. We used ordinary household liquids like lemon juice, vinegar, water, and dishwashing soap. Ask your child about our results!

Putting together a kitchen chemistry set can be lots of fun! Litmus paper is not expensive and can be found here. Try testing different liquids around the kitchen. What can you discover?