Happy New Year!

It is good to be back!  We had a very busy week!  We began our first day back with a visitor in our classroom!

We named him Olaf!  I am guessing many of them saw the movie, Frozen over our break!  

We used Olaf to introduce our science unit on matter.  Olaf was made of ice and we discussed how a solid keeps its shape unless someone or something causes a change.

As the day passed, we observed changes!  He was melting due to a change in temperature!  We left Olaf overnight so that we could continue to observe him the next day.

This is what we returned to school to find!  Olaf had continued to turn into a liquid!

We also heated water to observe the "gas."
We then applied our writing skills to record our observations.

All year we have been learning new comprehension skills.  During Daily 5, we listened to the story, The Snow Child, by Harriet Ziefert.  

We then made text to self connections and recorded them in our Reader's Response Notebook.

Our text talk book this week was, The Hatseller and the Monkeys, by Baba Wague Diakite.

This story is very similar to the book, Caps for Sale, by Esphyr Slobodkina.

We made text to text connections and recorded them in our Readers Response notebooks.

This week we also had a mystery to solve!  When the students returned from lunch/recess, their teacher had a band aid on her forehead!  They all wanted to know what "happened!"  We read clues that were posted around the room.  Each clue included ou/ow words  and brought us one step closer to the story.  

After each clue, the students drew a picture of their own predictions of what had happened. 

After the mystery was solved, they each recorded what had "happened" using as many ou/ow words from as possible.

We also learned about the sound that oi and oy make.  It reminds us of the a pig making the "oink" sound!  We cut and glued oi and oy words to a pink cup and used it as a pig snout to help us remember!

Please stop by again soon to see what we have been up to!



What a Busy Week!

 Here are a few snapshots of what we have been up to this week!

 

 

 

 In class we have also been very busy using our ten frames and our new rekenreks!   These new manipulatives are working perfect for our Number Talks and daily math lessons.  We continue to work on our doubles.

 

 

 

 

Our focus in comprehension has been SCHEMA!  We used the idea from Tammy McGregor's Comprehension Connections book           to use the lint roller!   Each child wrote about their schema about school on a sheet like the one below.

 

Then, in their Reader Response notebook, they chose a topic to write about their schema.  The student below wrote about her schema on gymnastics.

 

We have been busy learning many of our word chunks! 

 

 

Have a great weekend!

 

 

 

Fall Has Arrived!

 

Last week we studied about apples!  We made a sweet treat....apple turnovers! 

 

 

 

We have been learning about nouns!  Ask your child about it1

 

 

We have also been working hard on our writing!  This week we practiced using marshmallows to remind us to use spaces.  We also circled our nouns!

 

On Friday, we began our study of diagraphs.  We started with /th/.  We made "thinking thumbs" and brainstormed th words. 

 

 

Our class also made fall trees.  These will be on display during conferences.

 

 

We were introduced to adding doubles.  We used ten frames to help us with this skill.

 

 

 

 

We have loved earning gold tags each and every day.  We love using them for Fun Friday even more!  Here is our chart of choices and some pictures of our activities!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Welcome to Our Blog!

I will be posting pictures of our classroom activities here as often as possible.  Below are some of the activities that we have participated in recently.

 

Sight Word Art

During Daily 5 we spend time reading to ourselves and with someone.  We have spent a lot of time working on how to handle our books with care.

 

We are learning to write narratives that have a beginning, middle, and end.

We are learning about metacognition by making reading salads! Real reading combines our thinking with the text.

 

We read the book, Chrysanthemum and learned how our words can hurt or help others.  When we use hurtful words or "dip in someone's bucket," it can have a lasting effect.  In our Readers Response Notebooks, we created a reminder to use kinds words.