Check Out These Amazing Presenters!!

Wow! These kids worked so hard researching, creating a poster and presenting to our class!! I loved witnessing nervous kiddos find the courage to present to the class, the class being supportive to each other and listening respectfully, giving and receiving compliments, and feeling so shiny and successful when they finished presenting. Thank you for all the support and encouragement you gave your children throughout this BIG project. Everyone did a fabulous job and we have all enjoyed learning from each other. We are busy making books about everything we learned!

Cougar Mountain Zoo is amazing! We had a wonderful time with the lemurs, cranes, tigers, wallabies, macaws...all endangered animals!

Hello June!

We just can't believe it is June. Today in our morning meeting the kids discussed how it doesn't seem like June should be here yet and the year went by way too fast. I agree! I'm definitely not ready to say goodbye to this sweet and amazing group of kiddos. Luckily, I don't have to for a couple more weeks (13 days to be exact, still way too soon!).


We finished up fractions by looking at just one whole and fractioning it into pieces. The highlights were cutting a ginger cooking into sixteenths (with our fraction makers - isn't that what everyone calls a knife?) and eating it fraction by fraction. It was fun coming up with equivalent fractions and seeing the more we fractioned into pieces the more pieces we ended up with yet the bigger the number got on the bottom. And, of course, no math concept would be complete without a visit from Mistress Wonka. She asked her Oompas to make her candies using her special recipes, however, something got on her recipes, so they needed to figure out the missing quantities. With teaspoons and her magical dough, they set to work. She was, most definitely, impressed. We also had fun playing fraction bingo, fraction war, hexagon exchange (using pattern blocks to help us see fractions and build wholes), and the hex game (comparing fractions to help us get across the board). We also enjoyed creating art with patterned blocks and then finding the fractional value of the picture. Most worked with the hexagon equaling one and finding the value of the other blocks from there and then adding up all their shapes to find the total value. Some worked on assigning a different value to the hexagon (like 1/2 or 3) and finding the value of the other blocks. Tricky business! We also played with creating symmetrical designs using 1/2 or 1/4 of the triangles. Check them out on our wall! Some worked on adding and subtracting same fractions while others worked on adding and subtracting fractions with different denominators and finding common denominators. Some also worked on teaching the fractions manners and how to make them proper.


This last week we have been playing a little bit with algebra. Say what?! Didn't we do that in seventh grade when we were kids?? Yup, it's true and the kids are AMAZING and so ready to take it on. Using the image of a balance we can identify missing numbers that will help us figure out what would make each side equal. Some have even moved onto simplifying equations and solving problems like 4x-2x+8=2x+6+x. It has definitely put our adding and dividing skills to use like in x+x+x=12. Fun stuff!


This week we are playing with probability and statistics and how to make educated guesses using data from samples we take. We had fun today in groups of three sampling a bag of red and blue tiles and predicted which bag we had, the one with 25 reds and 5 blues, the one with 20 reds and 10 blues, or the one with 10 red and 20 blues. We took 20 samples altogether but after every 5 samples we made a guess as to which bag we thought we had. They definitely changed as they went so we all decided it is helpful to get a good number of samplings!


In language, one group finished reading "Green Man" and doing critical thinking and vocabulary work. It has been fun working with the dictionary and finding words so we have continued with our dictionaries to help us learn different Latin prefixes. We have done pre- and post-. We have enjoyed brainstorming words, finding their definitions and coming up with what we think the prefix means. We record the meaning of the prefixes, our favorite words, and then choose one to put in a sentence and illustrate. Some enjoyed creating new words by adding this handy meaning unit to words. For example, "Postlunch we will have teacher planning." We are making mini dictionaries so you will have to wait until the end of the year to see their great work. The other group is working on spelling patterns with word ladders and finding word power in chunks of words. We all made animal riddles this week which are a set of clues that are given to someone who tries to guess the endangered animal. We are hoping to share them with each other and our younger friends. Oh, have you heard we are doing cursive?! Yes, the kids have been anxious to learn cursive so we are ending the year with some fanciness.


We wrapped up our learning about wolves this week. We have learned about the pack dynamics, what they eat, how they survive, how they communicate, how packs interact and their territory, and how biologist study them and learn all of this information. Phew! We even watched a bit of a video about how wolves were reintroduced to Yellowstone. Wolves hold such an important place and keep nature balanced. To illustrate how the loss of species affects all the other 33 million species of life, we played a revised version of Jenga. We took pieces out but did not place them on top. Each block taken away was a species becoming extinct. No matter how careful we were in taking them out, it still collapsed after 15 blocks. No! We do not want any more species to become extinct!


We finished "The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane" and we all loved the book and the ending. Edward learned so much in his life and we were happy to see him loved and loving another. We are now reading "Tall Tails," a diary of a dog who helps the Wright Brothers design the first flying machine. It's been pretty entertaining and they have even described body positions of the dog that with our knowledge of wolf body language, we can interpret!


We made our goal of reading 500 books this year!!! We are still going towards 600 as a bonus to for extra toppings on our ice cream. AND, we are so close to 1000 cranes! We should be there by the end of the week!

News from the Peeping Pandas!

Wow! When Spring comes around we get so busy with projects, learning, having fun that time really does flies! With all the projects, planning and enjoying of your children, it has been hard to sit myself down to update the blog. So much has been happening and we have all been sharing and growing in so many ways!

I hope you all had a chance to stop by Traditions to see your children's beautiful artwork in window. We had fun using Eric Carle's style of painting tissue paper and cutting out pieces to create an image of our favorite endangered animals. If you missed out, the artwork will be up in our classroom soon.

As you know, we are getting into our new theme of Endangered Animals. We have all picked out a favorite endangered/threatened animal which may potentially be the topic of our Spring research project (more info. coming soon!). We have learned about the different status levels of animals and what they mean for a species. We discovered the precious Gray Wolf had been removed and in learning the process of how this occurred... let's just say we have some very passionate and outraged kiddos! We will learn more about the Endangered Species act and how a species officially becomes listed. This week we are learning about the classification system of living things. We learned a little history along the way about Aristotle (ask your children how Aristotle organized living things. We definitely found some flaws in the system!) and how he classified animals and then Linnaeus organized it a bit more for us and developed the system we use today. We began with an overview of all the Kingdoms and we will then focus our time in the Animal Kingdom.

In math this past month, we worked on division and making fair shares with sometimes remainders. Mistress Wonka made an appearance as apparently her customers are constantly squabbling over leftover pieces of candy. She had her Oompas make family guide books so families know exactly what size boxes will work for them with no leftovers. The kids were amazing me with how quickly they picked up division and some were ready for the really big numbers. We looked at division through the glasses of sharing things as well as grouping things. A few olders worked on dividing REALLY big numbers using the "forgiving" method which means taking chunks of groups out (I call it whittling it down to a reasonable number) and then adding all our chunks together.

We have just begun fractions - FUN! It was great to hear the examples kids have of when they use fractions or when they might find themselves saying a fraction...money, time, sharing food, measuring, miles traveled...This week we are looking at fractions as a way to describe a group of things. For example, I have 6 tiles...2 are green, 3 are blue, and 1 is red...so 2/6 are green, 3/6 or 1/2 are blue and 1/6 is red. Check out your children's "Goofy Groups" in their Thursday Packet.

In language, we continue working on our stories in Writer's Workshop. We have also been working in our reading groups. One group is working on reading short pieces of literature and doing deeper thinking around the theme of the pieces. We are focusing on the idea of change and how characters change in a story. It has been great for us to really stop and think more about what something means or why we think something and how we can prove it from quotes in story. The other group has been working on syllables and putting them into their bodies. We made up a fun game to play...ask your child if they are in this group and how to play the game!

We have taken a break from word sorts and our spelling words are all coming directly from out writing workshop stories or a list of high frequency words. I noticed several writers using contractions in their stories but a bit confused on how to spell them and what the apostrophe was doing in the word. We all also played with contractions and what they are and how to write them. We actually became "word surgeons" and brought out our scalpels and band-aids to change words into contractions! Such excellent doctors!

We are almost to our goal of 500 books! We read a little over 400! Our initial goal was 600 books though we decided that if we do get to 600 that will mean extra toppings for our ice cream!

For our read aloud, the kids chose The Miraculous Journey of Edward Tulane. We are all enjoying Edward so much! While we read we are tracking the things that happen to Edward and how he changes from the experiences he has with different people in his life. It has been a wonderful supportive text for our reading group who are focusing on the concept of change in literature.

On Earth Day we spent our afternoon helping out our tree friends in Watershed Park. We clipped, pulled and ripped ivy off the trees. We put in a lot of hard work and were very satisfied with our job well done!

April brought in the first round of book response and they were all absolutely amazing! Everyone worked so hard and did very careful and creative work. Here are just a few that I was able to capture....

With this book response the kids needed to work in groups of four (like the characters in the book) and create a club house using all the ideas. FUN!

K. sporting her t-shirt she designed from a Pixie Tricks book.

A scene in Z.'s book where a lot of action takes place!

We are almost to 600 cranes and the kids keep going and going and going...Thank you to all who have brought in origami paper! We hope to reach our goal by the end of this month or the beginning of next and send them with our wish to a school in Japan.