Happy Spring!

Yay, spring is here!! We've been enjoying daffodils and tulips in our room this past week and the kids have been antsy to sing spring songs. With the shift of seasons we will shift our theme focus next week!! The kids have already begun brainstorming ideas and posting topics on our theme chart. Hmmm..what will it be...microscopic organisms, ancient civilizations, electricity, ferocious animals....we will take votes this week, check in with our friends next door and announce the new theme this THURSDAY!!

Our final explorations in geology were in landforms. We made really neat pop-up books of different landforms. We also creating these beautiful pieces of artwork while also exploring warm/cool colors and foreground, midground and background.

We looked at the map of USA and located some major landformations like mountain ranges, hills and plains. It was fun to also look at all the states and where they are located and learn where some of the places we have heard about can be found, like the Grand Canyon, as well as get a sense of what some states may look like.

How we use rocks and minerals in our lives was our very last topic of conversation. We searched inside our room and outside for anything that was made from rocks and minerals. We found SO many things. We learned a bit about the process of getting the rocks/minerals from the Earth, quarries, and sometimes mountain top removal! Yikes, we did not like that! It was a good reminder for us to be mindful of everything we use (and recycle it if it can't be used anymore) as it all came from somewhere and has a price more than the $ we pay at the store.

You may remember, we played with homophones a few weeks ago and the kids were also finding great homonyms. We recorded and played with those a bit along with our weekly word sorts. We also played with limericks this week, which the kids loved and found to be quite hilarious. After hearing some examples and noticing the similarities and patterns in this form of poetry we learned the rules of a limerick and created one together. Are you ready...

There once was an old man named Fred,

he was silly and gooey on his head.

He ate a doughnut

and lived a hut,

all the while laughing with Ned!

Be sure to check out their individual limerick on our wall soon! Needless to say, Fred, Ned, and Ted all became quite popular!

Making traps with our younger buddies is always a highlight of this time of year. We had some clever traps this year...pictures of cute lady leprechauns to lure one into trap, ladders leading to yummy shamrocks only to get their feet and hands wet and be trapped...well, those clever leprechauns didn't fall for any of our tricks (although a few lost a hat in all their mischief making) and then they made a mess in our room along with some of their own tricks. Some of our posters were upside down, the calendar made no sense and they knocked over chairs, baskets, books....they did leave a few pieces of gold and shamrocks behind, thank goodness! Later in the day we had shamrock smoothies, yum! I made them with shamrocks and wild mushrooms (a leprechaun's favorite food!). No one seemed to believe me...

In math, we have continued to work on multiplication this last week. This week most of us will be revisiting subtraction and addition for a bit before moving on to division. Others will continue to work with multiplication and learning their times table.

In reading, we have been tuning in to interesting words to help us expand our vocabulary. As a group we have collected tarry, luxurious, ravenous and exquisite. Some kids are practicing finding words they don't know in their own reading during reading workshop. In finding these interesting words, we also thought about how to figure out what they might mean by what the sentence is saying and what makes sense. All our guesses were right on when we checked the dictionary!

In the afternoons, one day a week we have been focusing our energy on making our bodies stronger with P.E. which the kids have really enjoyed. We did some running around the gym and counted how many laps we could do in ten minutes -pant, pant! We purchases new jump ropes (reserved for jumping rope only!) and have begun practicing jumping rope on our own and learning how to coordinate our bodies and rope. Some of the kids have really gotten into it and want to practice every recess. And, everyday they are getting stronger and adding more techniques like jumping backwards or crossing the arms. Go jumpers!!

We will begin book shares next month, look for information in your child homework folder this week!