Although we have taken quite a big break from using the weebly, we are back!! The past few months got the best of me and kept me quite busy so our weebly unfortunately was what came off my plate. However, I wanted to share some pictures from our recent fossils unit! The kiddos became paleontologist for two days and went on quite a few 'digs'. Our first dig was outside and involved the kiddos using their tools to dig up ancient dinosaur bones! Once the team worked together to dig up the bones (no hands allowed), they had to assemble the bone pieces into the dinosaur! We then grabbed our scientific notebooks and studied the dinosaur bones to draw conclusions about that dinosaur (what they ate, if they flew, length of certain body parts). The kids had a BLAST! Check out pictures below! We started off our fossil time today by discussing the difficulties paleontologists might endure during one of their digs. We talked about the different tools that might be helpful, the fact paleontologists can't lift the rock they are working with to get a better angle to dig out bones, as well as how it may be easier to dig something out of a sand than rock. I told the kiddos that they would be paleontologists yet again today and this time, they had to extract fossils from a rock! We talked about what the word extract meant, about cleaning off their fossils once they were extracted, and about how rushing through an extraction could result in chipped fossils! The kiddos were each given a cookie that acted as their rock. The task? Extract as many fossils (chocolate chip cookies) using your tool (toothpick) as possible! We stopped every 2 minutes and recorded our data (chipped fossils, how many fossils we could extract, how many tools we broke that round...). The kiddos did this for 8 minutes! During the last two minutes, I gave the kiddos an extra toothpick to help steady the cookie as they dug out the chocolate chips! The kiddos had great conversations about how much more difficult this task was then they thought it would be. They didn't like that they had to rely on the tool instead of their hands :) Check out our pictures below!
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We have taken a break from numbers and moved on to geometry in math! This unit is such a nice break for the kiddos. There are many different vocabulary words the kids need to fully comprehend in this unit, such as: polygon, trapezoid, parallelogram, octagon, hexagon, quadrilateral, pentagon, sides, verticies, and angles! To help with the playground math homework, see the anchor chart in our classroom below! The kiddos were hard at work using all of the shapes we have learned to create robots in class. Check out a robot below!
Your kiddos have been paired up to create their own version of a fractured fairy tale! The kiddos could write their fairy tale based off of Cinderella, Jack and the Beanstalk, The Three Little Pigs, and more! As I was walking around the room checking in with the groups, I noticed some creative titles: The 3 Balloons and the Big Bad Needle, Cinderella Gets Famous, The Three Little Dragons, and more! We hope to have these published and shared before break!
We read the book, America's White Table by Margot Theis Raven yesterday and learned all about Veteran's and the table they set in the dining halls across all military branches for Veteran's Day. We wanted to recreate this table on placemats to be used during Dads and Donuts to show others what we had learned. There were some veterans that were so touched by the kiddos work, they took the placemats home (so sweet)! Some of your kiddos will be bringing home their placemats today and I wanted to give you some background to what each item meant. See the list below: We also had the opportunity to Facetime Mrs. Hersland's brother-in-law and his friend that are both in the Army. The kiddos came up with questions before hand for both men to answer. The kids loved seeing and speaking with someone who serves in our Army. See the pictures below!
We had a great time at our Harvest Party! Watch the slideshow above to see all of our great costumes! The kiddos loved all of the games - a big thank you to the parents for organizing such a great party!
The kiddos had a great report from our recent sub and they have had great behavior recently so I decided it was time for a quick reward. I ran to our workroom to grab our grade level flashlights and introduce the kiddos to a new type of reading. I closed the blinds and told the kiddos to grab their favorite book and find a place to cozy up. I passed out the flashlights and we began our flashlight reading reward :) The kids LOVED it, we will definitely be doing this again.During reading time, I passed out FOUR Scholastic Book Orders to the kiddos. Why so many? Our last order was SO big that each kiddo has earned a free $5 book when they place a $10 order! I wanted the kiddos to have plenty of options when choosing their books :) The task during reading time was to go through all of the books and circle the ones that we wanted. It just so happens that our math lesson was all about learning how to write the written form of numbers. We started this lesson off with reasons it is important to know how to spell numbers. We eventually came around to the answer of checks! I copied some fake checks for the kiddos to see and we practiced filling one out together. I knew this was the perfect opportunity to let two great subjects collide! I told the kiddos when they finished their workmats, they needed to use a calculator and add up the total cost of all the books they wanted. Then, they had to write a check to Scholastic for that amount! The kids were SO excited and can't wait to show you all of their hard work :)
Our class has been learning about how plants and animals change as the environment changes. We have focused on the following adaptations: migration, hibernation, forage, camouflage, and leaves changing color! The kiddos have done a wonderful job with understanding each of these adaptations. To prepare for winter, animals search for food (forage). We went on a search of our own for suckers that I hid throughout the classroom :)
We have been busy working on syllables this week. We have practiced how to identify how many syllables are in a word, that each syllable break needs a vowel, and how identifying syllables can help us to spell words. Below is an activity we did in class where the kiddos had to correctly spell the word and identify the syllable breaks using wiki sticks! We have also spent the week starting to look at small moment stories. We read Saturday and Teacakes which was a great example of a special memory that happened over one day. We read BIGMAMA today and talked about how this story was more of a watermelon story - it took place over many days with lots of small moment stories in it. We decided focusing on a 'seed' would allow us to pick one event and expand on the details.
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Specials Schedule:Monday: PE Important Dates:
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