Greek Pentathlon

Our OCS Olympians

We had such a wonderful time in Ancient Greece!  We wrapped up our studies with a traditional pentathlon, an Ancient Greek photo booth (pillars, chiton and all), and a Greek feast of olives, hummus, figs, pita, tzatziki, grape juice, a yummy dessert, and a puppet show performance of our Aesop fable .  Here are some photos of the pentathlon...

For the long jump, a hopping course.

For the wrestling event, we hooped!

Running Event

For the javelin event, a bag toss.

Discus Event

Math

We have been working so hard subtracting, taking away, "minusing" that when we had that oh so glorious sunny day a week or so ago, I just had to take the kids outside to practice some mental subtraction math.  Some chalk, two rocks and we were ready to go!

Sunny day = outside math!

We will continue to practice our subtraction the rest of the year though we needed to take some time away from all our numerical reasoning and do some spatial reasoning. Being in Ancient Egypt will give us the perfect opportunity to learn about pyramids and other 3-D shapes!  First, we are focusing on 2-D shapes and the attributes of polygons.  We had fun learning that the names of shapes have their origins in Greek and their names correspond to their number of sides. Everyone has been practicing the word "quadrilateral." What a mouthful!

To build our spatial skills, we have been manipulating, folding and constructing shapes.  We discovered how a square can be folded into many difference shapes and how to make other shapes using pattern blocks or other shape pieces..  We used geoboards to discover properties of triangles and explore the idea of congruency.  Next up, we will see what different shapes we can create with 4, 5, and 6 triangles (hexiamonds!) and then it off to the 3-D world!!

Literacy

We have been busy with our routines of word sorts on Mondays and then a quick word sort of the same words on Wednesdays.  We then choose a column of words with the same spelling pattern and try to use as many of the words possible to create a silly sentence.  They are pretty silly and strange!  We all continue practicing long vowel patterns, some focusing on magic "e" patterns while others incorporate two vowels go walking. 

Theme

Ancient Egypt!  We have been SO busy!  We first had to learn a bit about hieroglyphs since so much of what has been learned about ancient Egypt life was discovered when the Rosetta Stone helped break the hieroglyph code and revealed it all to us!  We then learned about the people of ancient Egypt from the Pharaoh and nobles to the farmers and slaves.  We learned why and how the pyramids were built and thoroughly enjoyed making sugar cube pyramids.  Learning about mummies was high on the list, so we learned the step by step process of mummification and experimented using different salts to mummify an apple.  We found some worked much better than others!  Check out our results in this weeks Thursday packet. 

This week we are focusing on the Nile river and why people chose to live near it and how much they depended on it for survival.  We will learn Nile facts, Nile animals (hippo and crocodile), how it was the superhighway of ancient Egypt, how the flooding provided nutrients for their crops, boat building and of course, the uses of papyrus that liked to grow near it.



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!