News from the Marvelous Martians

Important Dates and Reminders

Sunday December 13: National Cocoa Day! Enjoy a cup of Hot Cocoa:)

Portfolio Share: December 18 @ 9:00

Winter Holiday Community Celebration: December 18th from 1:00 to 3:00 Come celebrate winter holidays from around the world with us!

DROP EVERYTHING AND READ (DEAR) HAS OFFICIALLY BEGUN!! PLEASE HELP YOUR CHILD TO REMEMBER TO BRING HIS OR HER DEAR BAG TO AND FROM SCHOOL!

Math: This is such an exciting time of year, with so many things to celebrate! We are taking a break from our regular schedule to learn about some of the many winter holidays celebrated around the world! We had a blast learning about Hanukkah with Evan's family, learning to play dreidel and sampling yummy latkes! Evan has let us borrow his menorah and we will be lighting the candles each day of Hanukkah! Thank you Evan!

What do an ear of corn, a straw mat, 7 candles, a candle holder, a unity cup, a bowl of fruits and vegetables, and gifts have in common? These are the 7 symbols of Kwanzaa! It was really neat learning what each of these items symbolizes for this unique 7 day celebration. Ask your child to share some of this with you!

There was much story sharing when learned about Las Posadas, a holiday that recognizes the journey of Joseph and Mary and their search for a place to stay. Seems we could all relate to what it would feel like to have trouble finding a place to stay! What a fun celebration Las Posadas sounds like...each night for 9 days families journey from house to house "looking for a place to stay". Each night the journey ends in a different house, where they are welcomed to stay...and enjoy a grand fiesta complete with pinatas! We all agreed that 9 nights of partying must be really fun!

The final holiday we learned about was Junkanoo, a holiday that celebrates the freedom of slaves, observed primarily in the Bahamas. Junkanoo is another holiday that sounds like sooo much fun, but we wondered if we might fall asleep amidst all the fun! Junkanoo celebrations involve street parades with elaborate costumes and music lasting from midnight until dawn! WOW!

We have been using a variety of art techniques to create books that represent our explorations of these various holidays. Look for these to be shared during the Portfolio Share!

Language Arts: Our writing workshop pieces continue to focus on the idea of stretching out a small moment of our life into a book. Most of us have completed at least one book, and have had the opportunity to share them in author's chair! There have been books titled...Party Boy, It Was Fun, When I Got My Red Bump, My Thanksgiving, The Park...It is so amazing seeing the students grow as writers!

I found a shell. Kind of boring! While walking on the beach, I found a white, jaggedy, clam shell, covered with sharp, pointy barnacles. A bit more interesting! We've been practicing describing objects from around the room with interesting describing words...this might be something to try at home, too!

December is National Write to a Friend Month! (what will they think of next?!) Soooo, naturally, we wrote letters to our friends! Our letters were either "complimentary" or thank you letters.

Phonics groups this week focused on: short i, th, and st sm sp sk.

Theme: You may think it has been cold and dark in Olympia...well, you should try visiting Uranus!!!! Brrr!!! It is so cold and dark here! Be sure to ask your child why the rings on Uranus "go up and down" (this is kid lingo for vertical)! We've added another page to our planet books, and created Uranus puppets...Father of the sky! To create Uranus for our mobiles we painted with watercolors, sprinkling a coat of salt on the planet while it dried. The result is a blotchy effect, very similar to actual images of Uranus!

Investigations: Kynex, Legos, Art, Magnets, and Dreidel are the top choices this week! We have also used this time to create some special holiday gifts, but mums the word!

News from the Moon Toons!

Important Dates
December 18th - Portfolio share 9:15-10:15

Friday Workshops
Zachary
Oliver

Here are a couple pictures from last week's Friday Workshops!

Hamster takes a trip to OCS to help teach all about hamsters!

A proud creator of a beeswax sculptor after taking a class taught by a Moon Toon.

Math
Pentominoes! What are pentominoes? Well, dominoes have two squares, triominoes have three squares, tetrominoes have fours squares, and, yup, you guessed it, pentominoes have five squares! We first practiced our spatial reasoning to discover the 12 pentominoes possible. This was great practice in group work and persistence. Group members needed to make sure they were communicating with all their fellow members to help keep track of the pentominoes made. We needed to make sure our pentominoes were unique by flipping or rotating them to make sure it was not already made.

Once we had them all made we gave them names like, "The Chair" or "The Snake." We then worked individually or with a partner to discover if we could make a "One Difference Loop" or "One Difference Line." This means we take one set of twelve pentomino pieces and arrange them in a loop such that only one square needs to be moved to change a shape into the one that follows. We recorded the loops and lines we found, check them out!
We then moved on to pentomino puzzles. We worked on fitting all our 12 pieces into a 5-by-12 grid puzzle board. This was challenging but with a few hints and a whole lot of perseverance, we did it! We also played a game with a partner using the same puzzle board. The object is to be the last player to play a piece, making it impossible for the opponent to fit in another. This definitely put our spatial skills to work!

After finding the perimeter of each pentomino, we shifted from two-dimensional to three-dimensional and explored which of our pentominoes could be folded into a box. Could we predict which square would be the bottom? We will end the week making two-cube boxes and making "Fill-the-Box Puzzles" where we will predict how many cubes could fit in a box that is flattened, explain their thinking, then test it. We will make our own puzzles for others to solve. All this work with perimeter, area, and moving into three-dimensional shapes is leading to a surprise visit from Mistress Wonka!

Language
In Literacy Centers this week, word ladders were introduced as a choice for some. Word ladders involve using spelling patterns and creating words by changing one or two letters. One may either climb their way up the picture ladder or make their way down.

We also wrote letters to our friends in space about what we do when we celebrate Christmas, Winter Solstice, or Hanukkah. This was fun as we needed to explain every part of the holiday as if to someone who had never heard of it! For some it was explaining who Santa is or what a Christmas tree is and where it comes from. Others explained all the things they do, like spending time with family, playing games, or opening presents. Some will take this piece and make edits and publish it in their best handwriting.

Theme
Uranus, the father of the Titans - wow! Be sure to check out the pictures the children drew of this long bearded one! We enjoyed listening to a few Greek myths while we sketched. Pegusus, Medusa, Hyrda, oh my! And poor Hercules and all the dangerous tasked he had to complete! We are also practicing our play and making props and scenery. Please help your child memorize their line(s) if they haven’t yet. Thank you!

We will also be creating a gift for each other that celebrates the wonderfulness of each of us. Stay tuned!

News from the Moon Toons

Reminders
December 18th - Portfolio Share 9:00

Friday Workshops

December 4th
Kat - Beeswax Creations
Jack - Turtles

December 11th
Oliver - Making Pizza
Zachary - TBA

Math

We continue to practice measuring height, width, area and perimeter. We used geoboards to help us create shapes and determine the area. We also used cuisinare rods to experiment with different ways to cover the same area but with different perimeters. We found so many ways the area of 30 cm. sq could be shaped and which ways has the smallest perimeter or the largest.

We read "512 Ants on Sullivan Street" and practiced our doubling of numbers until we got to over 1,000! We then determining what numbers in our calculations were closest to 100 and 1,ooo. We had to prove it using addition or subtraction to show how far way our numbers were. Doubling numbers and algebra surfaced again as we solved a math mission with paper folds. How many sections would you have on a piece of paper if it was folded in half 6 times? We found it to be helpful to begin with one fold, then two folds, then three folds and then to create a T chart to record our information. Finding a pattern was helpful after that as it gets a little tricky to fold paper that tiny and to count all the little squares!

Language

In Writing Workshop this week, we continue to practice adding more description to our writing with adjectives. We practiced together turning simple sentences into one that really paints a picture for the reader. The sentence, "The cat ate food" was transformed by one group into "The fluffy fat cat ate smelly rotten tuna at Laguna Beach, California." Now that really paints a picture! Buddy shares has become a once a week routine after our quiet writing time. Everyone gets to read a story they are in the process of writing or have finished. They each share with another author followed by compliments from the listener. All the writers are eager to share and this allows everyone the opportunity and well as the chance to receive compliments and feedback from their peers.

One activity during literacy centers this week was responding to a journal prompt. We all thought of a moment from our past Thanksgiving weekend. It had to be a moment that was crystal clear in our minds so that when we closed our eyes we could see it happening like a movie. We then spent time writing our moments as clearly as we could so that other readers could really picture it and feel the moment. The writings were impressive! Journal entries allow us to experiment with different kinds of writing and provide entries that can be used and developed in future writing workshop stories if so desired.

In reading groups, some continue to explore a variety of folktales while others practice reading without the help of pictures. Some groups are in the process of choosing a chapter book they would like to read as a group or with a partner in a book club. We will begin book clubs in January!

Theme
Oh Saturn and your dusty, icy, rocky rings! We will get a little taste of you on Thursday so be sure to ask your child what they taste like! Also, check out the children's drawings of the Titan Kronos - amazing!!

We will have two guests this week! Ray from Tacoma Astronomical Society will visit us and share a presentation on the planets. And then on Friday Beth will make planet distance rulers with us! We are so lucky!