CHECK OUT WHAT’S HAPPENING WITH THE SPARKING VOLCANOES…

Hi all! I am trying out a new format for the blog. My goal is to have something fairly simplistic to keep you informed of what's going on in the classroom each week. Periodically, I will add longer entries, highlighting specific projects. I would love any feedback you have as I try out this new format! WHAT'S HAPPENING!
Week of March 2, 2011
Theme	Landforms ~ We are learning to identify different landforms (mountains, valleys, plateaus, plains, butte, etc,). Activities include creating landform matching card games, “colorful landforms” art with warm and cool colors, and sculpting landforms.
Math	Subtraction ~ Number writing practice, Creating and illustrating subtraction equations (using number cards to create equations, drawing a sequence of pictures to illustrate the equation, and telling a story that explains the pictures/equation)
Language Arts	Writing workshop (focus on spacing between words and where to add periods), Phonics groups (sh and ch game, wh, ch, th and sh picture sort, silent e word sort), Reading groups/language arts games
Investigations	Lots of building (with blocks, legos, Kynex), dramatic play, art and playing board games. I have noticed that the block play has moved beyond building and now includes pretend play utilizing the structures. Playing Board games has recently become a favorite activity. If you have any age appropriate games that you’d like to share for a week or so let me know! It would be fun to add some new ones into the mix!

Happy Year of the Rabbit!

Did the flea flee? Is that a moose eating mouse? Are we having fun with words and playing with homophones? YES! We've had a great time thinking of words that sound the same but have very different meanings and spelled differently. Look for our funny sentences on our door soon!

We have continued to focus on word choice in our writing and finding ways to include interesting words. We thought of many ways a person might write "said" depending on how they felt...barked, mumbled, whispered, yelled....We enjoyed saying "It's raining outside," with all the different ways. We've been keeping our eyes open during reading workshop (as we read our own books) for words to add to our list. Thinking of words for "eat" was fun and enjoyed even more as we practiced eating the different ways. Did she nibble her popcorn or maybe she devoured it! Actually doing it helped us understand how much more detail we can give with just one word thus painting a vivid picture for our readers.

In math, we played with rotating and flipping designs and created some phenomenal artwork which the children are hoping to put into a coloring book to sell. We also played with tessellations and found a fun way to create a pattern piece that fits into itself over and over. Look for both of these pieces of work on our wall!

We also moved from polygons to polyhedrons. We had fun learning how to name and draw (and create!) three dimensional shapes which led us to drawing three dimensional houses and letters. It fit ever so nicely with our crystal studies as we identified crystal structures!

Mistress Wonka finally made her first appearance this year! Apparently she needed a new line of candy and wanted all the candy to be symmetrical polyhedrons. She asked her Oompas to design ideas for her new candy as well as share ideas of what interesting properties could be included in the candy (for example, ice breath or invisibility). I heard she was quite impressed with the Oompas' work and promised to return soon. Their work can be found on the windowsill.

We began multiplication! Yay!! Big cheer from the kids! We played with different ways to group numbers, revisited our factors that we were keeping track of earlier in the year, practiced our counting by and started our multiplication math games. We have played Tic-Tac-Toe with a Twist and made grid art and multiplication designs. For some, these are new games and for others, games they are revisiting. Older kids who have played these games last year, stretch themselves by working with bigger numbers. It is wonderful to see the children take responsiblity of their learning and make choices that help them grow as learners.

In geology, we have been thinking about how rocks and minerals are used in our lives, both past and present. We know that long ago toys and games were created using the natural world around us, so it made since that many of the games we know and love today have their orgins with rocks and pebbles. We learned a couple of old old games, one of which was Mancala. We made our own boards from cartons and pebbles we found outside but also discussed that originally, the "board" was simply holes dug into the earth. Now, here is one of those wonderful teacher moments...guess what I found these two doing the next day during recess? Yes! They had created a traditional Mancala game and having a blast. Love it!

We had a great Chinese New Year celebration organized by a wonderful group of parents - thank you! The kids had a great time learning about the traditions and symbolism of foods, making lanterns, eating pot stickers, and participating in a dragon dance.

Friday kid workshops have been going well! I am always impressed with the creativity the children have with the workshops they teach. They are always coming in with new ideas. We've had how to make mazes or mud pots to sideshows about Senegal. Here Zac is teaching about one of his passions, airplanes!

In January, Fridays were spent either at the food bank or swimming at the YMCA. I spent my time out of the pool this year which allowed me the opportunity to really observe all the children (outside of my seal training duties, of course!). I loved watching all the children play together and help those who are learning to swim or teach a friend a water trick.

Looking ahead...snowshoe trip, Valentine's Day, 100th Day, more Mistress Wonka and multiplication, book responses, Latin, literature groups, and much much more!

Happy New Year!

We are so happy to be back together after our long winter break! We got right back into our flow and learning together with new younger buddies, geodes, geometry, new stories, interesting descriptions, field trips every Friday, AND having a new friend in our classroom! Can it get any more amazing around here?!

In math, we are taking a break from reasoning numerically by reasoning spatially. We investigated polygons (versus non-polygon) shapes, learned new words to help us describe shapes and lines such as parallel, perpendicular, vertex, not to mention the names for the different sided shapes. We loved all the Greek and Latin! Something that blew our minds was that not all triangles, pentagons, and hexagons look the same. For example, a pentagon can look like a house (regular pentagon) but it can also look very different (an irregular)- as long as it has five sides, it's a pentagon. We had a lot of fun exploring these concepts on our geoboards as well as making some fun art.

This last week, we played with hexiamonds (using six triangles to make shapes) and found there are twelve possible shapes. We named them (of course!) and then explored them a bit more by playing a card game where you can play a card only if it means moving just one triangle into another position to create the new shape. This was tricky as we needed to flip and rotate to make sure we could do it.

We also began playing with tangrams and will continue to this week. We created our own set of tans and found we can create all seven pieces from one square. We explored making animals and people as well as other geometric shapes (squares, triangles, trapezoids, rectangles) with our tans by using 1, 2, 3, and so on....of our pieces. Such great problem solving, perseverance when there isn't a quick result, and wonderful group work as we help each other.

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Our tangrams have led us into the world of tangram theater...fun! We each made a picture with our tangram. We had a polar bear, ostrich, bunny, kitty, candle, rocket car, and a fish. We made a group story together arranging the tiles as we told the story. All I can say as that the ostrich and bunny had an unfortunate day at the grocery story but luckily ends well! Check out our story in our room when you get the chance! The kids are excited to write more stories on their own or with a partner or two. Keep your eyes out for these collaborative creations!

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In Writing Workshop, we have begun working with word choice (one of the six traits of writing) and thinking about how we can make our writing even more interesting. We practiced by turning plain sentences -rice cake sentences (The dog was hungry.) into salsa sentences (The cute little puppy dog was so hungry he scarfed down the entire Thanksgiving turkey.). The kids even had me put on my safety glasses (another story I'll share sometime!) in case any words flew off the pages.

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We said goodbye to our younger buddies before Winter Break and hello to a new younger friend! Such excitement! Now during Buddy Reading, a younger friend reads a book with a older buddy coaching and then a older buddy get to read a book aloud. I had to share this picture, as one day these three older boys did not have their younger buddies. They found each other and were taking turns reading from a book at their level and helping each other with the words. YES!

We have begun moving into the world of crystals! We made a couple of crystal solutions (from minerals only!) before we left on break and were amazed at what we found when we returned. We let them sit for a couple more weeks and will really investigate them this week. We did learn all about geodes. It is incredible to think that when we crack a geode open we are the first to ever lay eyes on it! We loved what we found! We also enjoyed doing some creative writing with pretending to find what we thought was a geode but when we cracked it open we found....

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Last week we spent our afternoons learning about Martin Luther King Jr. We shared what we knew and then did a bit of research on our own in small group to find out more information (and even got to watch a video and parts of his speech!). Everyone decided that if they were alive during his time that they would be right next to him marching and protesting! On Friday, we had a birthday celebration where we shared our cards we made for him, sang happy birthday (the bouncy one, of course!) and had is favorite pie, pecan.

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In the spirit of service, some of us spent our Monday off, with a day ON working to restore habitat in the Green Cove wetland.

We spent three hours planting native trees, mulching, cutting and digging up blackberries. We also did a bit of water testing.

Have a wonderful week!