Hershey Mass Production

We're currently studying the Northeast region in social studies. One of our essential questions is, "Why did our nation's first factories start here?" We learned that the water and people in the Northeast region influenced factories being built here. Many factories were built near rivers and used the water to power their factories. In addition, the Northeast's population provided people power for the factories.

We "stopped" at the Hershey Factory to learn about mass production. Students worked in groups of three and specialized in one job: wrap cutter, candy placer, or candy wrapper. For three minutes, students worked in an assembly line to (re)wrap Hershey Kisses. Groups wrapped between 8 and 15 pieces of candy during this time.

After the activity, we thought a little about what it would be like to work in a factory, specializing in one job, for a 40 hour work week. Many students recognized it may not be as exciting to do the same job for eight hours a day as it was to do it for three minutes in class.

The video below includes some photos and video of our mass production.

Hershey Mass Production from kate mills on Vimeo.

Room 101's Math Class by Braiden

Lately in math we have been learning how to multiply 2 digit multipliers and 1 digit multipliers. We have practiced doing them with the traditional algorithm.

We have done something called hot calls. What we do is Mrs. Mills or Mrs. Barnett write a rounded fact and everyone does it in their head. Then Mrs. Mills or Mrs. Barnett calls on anybody (you don't raise your hand). Then, the person answers it. Next, the class agrees or disagrees. Finally, we do the next problem. Hot calls are normally in the mini-lesson.

A mini-lesson is what we do every day in math after our math message. In the mini-lesson we learn about what we will practice. After that we do a sheet or math journal page to practice what we learned. And that is room 101's math!

 Doing the math message before the mini-lesson.

 Doing partner work in the mini-lesson.

Doing a sheet after the mini-lesson.

The photos above were taken and captioned by Braiden.