Happy 100th Day!!

100th day partiers!

Wow!  What a wonderful 100th day of school!  Our entire day focused on, you guessed it, 100!  We counted to 100 by 5s and 10, filled in a 100s chart by following clues, did 100 exercises - 10 exercises, 10 times (I'm still sore!), played 100 Tally Marks and  Roll to $1.00, completed a 100 piece puzzle, and of course, wrote equations that equal 100.  This was followed by a 100 snack (a pretzel stick for the one and two pretzels for the 0s) - yum!

Be sure to check out our 100 year old portraits and what we will be doing in 100  years - cute!!  We also had fun being creative with the numbers 100 and using the numerals to make a picture - check these out on our classroom door. 

We ended our day with making our traditional 100 piece trail mix with 10 pieces of 10 different items.  The kids had fun searching for 100 chocolate kisses that were hidden outside and putting them on the 100s board - they found them all!!!

Math
After visiting counting by twos in January and revisiting addition (double-digit and for some regrouping (carrying)!), we are now deep in the world of subtraction this past month.  We are practicing strategies to  help us figure out math facts and also deciding what strategy is best depending on the equation we are solving.  When is it helpful to count back or when is it easier to add-on?  Spending quality time with our addition math facts has really helped us see the patterns in subtraction, giving us more ease in learning our subtraction facts - yay!!  Some our working on their 1-10 facts while others focus on 1-20 facts and doing double digit with regrouping (borrowing).  We have been revisiting favorite addition games that have been transformed into subtraction games  - Four in a Row, Five in a Row, Number Race, and Subtraction Tic-Tac-Toe, to name a few.

Literacy
In writing workshop, we experimented with using quotation marks when there is dialogue in our stories.  We had fun playing with this using macaroni on our own sentences or sentences we found in a book.  We continue to practice editing our own stories and creating stories with solid beginnings, middles, and endings.

We have been spending time with the amazing and Magical e!  We learned that baby vowels can grow up (become big kids) who still need someone to look after them (need a babysitter).  However, Magic e comes along and give them a look that says, "Hey, you're a big kid, you can say your name! Better mind me!"  So, cap becomes cape!  The kids enjoyed acting this out and taking turns being the baby vowel that grows up and the Magic e that gives a quiet look.  Our focus these next week will be on those long vowel patterns.

Blends have also been something that we are taking time to notice in our writing and reading.  We love to listen to "Put in the blender" song and coming up with words that have beginning blends.  During reading workshop, kids often excitedly share a word they read that has a beginning blend, and on our class list it goes!

We continue to add to our reading strategies.  For accuracy, we have added "Using the pictures" and "Skip the word, then come back" to our list.  For comprehension, we have "Check for understanding" and "Retell the story."  And for fluency, we have "Practice high frequency words" and "Reread text."  All our reader keep growing and growing!

To help us write a story starring our own mythical creature, we used a story map to help us define all the characters, setting, and plot.  We used the idea of a mountain to help us create a beginning that leads us to the top (the exciting part!), and an ending that gives us a tight conclusion.

Theme
Ancient Greece has been fascinating!  Our focus in this country has been the stories of Ancient Greece and learning about gods/goddess, mythical creatures, Aesop fables, architecture and the general culture of ancient Greece.  We learned about the major Olympian gods and goddess and LOVED drawing them. The most popular were Aphrodite and Hades.  We also learned about different mythological creatures and had a hard time picking just one or two to draw and write about, they are all so cool!  We enjoyed creating our own mythical creature and choosing its magical powers or purpose.

We enjoyed reading a few of Aesop's fables and guessing the morals to the stories.  We picked our favorites and have begun working on a puppet show to share with the other classes, or maybe as the entertainment for our Greek feast on Friday.

Learning about the gods and goddesses would not be complete without looking at the temples that were built in their honor. We learned about the three types of columns and took a video tour (thanks Rick Steves!) of the temples of Athens.  We then tried our hand with three dimensional drawing and drew a temple sitting atop the acropolis.  Look for these on the wall soon!!  They are amazing!

Building Greek temples

Special Events and Field Trips Photo Gallery

Gymnastic fun with friends!

Cozy reading time on PJ Day

Bowling!

Valentine's from our friends

January

On Monday, we filled in our 90th day of school on our calendar!!  Half way through the year!  Wow! Everyone has grown so much, in so many ways.  January flew by and was a short month with all our snow days but we managed to fit in amazing work.  Here are a few highlights...

We spend time learning about  the life and work of Martin Luther King, Jr. We made sweet birthday cards for him, thanking him for his work and sharing our own dreams that we have for the world.  We were all set to have a  birthday celebration (with his favorite pie-pecan pie, complete with candles) but the weather had different plans for us that week. :)

Birthday card for MLK

 

 

 We celebrated Chinese New Year (thank you parents for organizing this for us!) with lantern making and a dragon dance.

Dragon dance

 We had our first trip of the year to the Thurston County Food Bank.  The kids worked so hard sorting and organizing food for the FORKids program  The program is a school school backpack meal program which assists local children in need.  Two days worth of kid-friendly foods are provided on Fridays at area elementary schools. 

Counting protein items at the food bank.  Such hard workers!

Happy New Year!

Happy 2012!! Before Winter Break we had fun learning about a couple of Winter holidays (Solstice, Kwanzaa, and Bodhi Day). The flowers above are from a Bodhi Day activity.  We made beautiful lotus flowers to look at while we meditated in honor of the Buddha reaching enlightenment. Ahhh...

Thank you all for a wonderful Portfolio Share Day!  The children were all so excited to share with you everything they have done this year and show off how much they have grown.  Yay!!

Math
Pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters...we've been counting them all!  We have been playing so many games (matching game, money in the bank, pay the bills, two-coin game, clean up the money...) to help us learn and practice counting coins.  It has been great practice in putting our counting by tens and fives to practical use!  Olders worked more with quarters and everyone practiced adding on, counting the highest coins first, adding the next amount, until finally adding the pennies (25, 35, 45, 50, 55, 60, 61, 62, 63 cents!).  Our final task was to each add up the coins we needed to pay our individual  bill for our Ecuadorian feast!

We ended our unit on money with learning about Moon Jars and creating our own jars to save, spend and share our money.  It was great to hear from the kids their ideas of the kinds of things they may save up for, what they might spend some money on, and how they could share with others, too.

This week we have been practicing counting by twos.  We had fun thinking of things that come in two (earrings, shoes, nostrils...). We will visit multiplication again (2s table) and practice counting by two's with different games and ways of counting (yesterday we had fun pounding the table two times for every number we said...thump, thump, 2!, thump thump, 4!...).

Moon Jars

Literacy
In Writing Workshop, we have been busy becoming our own editors of our writing. With editor glasses on and checklist in hand, each child goes through and checks for capitals and periods, lowercase letters, and if it all makes sense.  As the year continues, the checklist will evolve with the children's writing.  They are taking their job as editor very seriously (it's what all authors must do with their stories) before they publish and share their books.

Spelling is up and running again!  Expect to see a list of new words every Monday!  The source of our words will be from our word sorts of the week or any high frequency words from our own writing or the word wall.

In reading workshop, we are learning different reading strategies that will help our comprehension, accuracy, or fluency while reading.  Watch our wall of strategies grow and our readers, too!

We enjoyed reviewing the sounds and playing mouth charades (making the vowel sound with our mouth -no sound - and friends guessing the vowel).  We have been using mirrors to help us or feeling our mouth position with our fingers to help us identify the vowel sound when writing words.  We also had lots of fun acting out the stories of babysitters.  How does "c" feel when left alone with a baby "a"?  A little nervous but luckily friendly "k" offers to help! (_ack)  Phew!  Or what about when "l" is left with a baby "e"? Uh-oh, "l" says, "I can't do this by myself!" Thankfully "l" has a wonderful twin that will help!  (_ell).  These stories have been wonderful in helping the kids learn different spelling patterns.  We will continue to practice our word famlies for a bit longer as we focus on beginning blends.

Theme
The Galapagos Islands were so amazing!  It was hard to leave, with so many interesting animals to learn about and get to know!  Our final day in Ecuador was delicious with our feast of Ecuadorian tortillas, salsa, corn salad with papaya dressing, and dried bananas and mango - yum!

Ecuadorian Feast =Delicious!

This week we hiked up the Andes through some mountain villages to find a good river that will flow to the Amazon.  We created pictures of what we saw and enjoyed reviewing our geometry terms and using the artistic skill of foreground, mid-ground, and background to add depth to our pictures.

Ecuadorian Mountain Village

As we canoe down the Amazon we are noticing how people live.  It has been interesting to see the children living along the Amazon and how different their lives are from our own and in what ways they are the same.

Our trusty canoes!

We also made a list of animals we hope to see along the Amazon...pink river dolphins, piranhas, jaguars, sloths...fingers crossed we see a few!