Heavier or Lighter...?

Today we moved on from measuring things for length to measuring for weight.  Students had the chance to use two different scales as well as blocks to build their own balance scales.  There was lots of excitement and buzzing around making both sides "even" or "balanced."  We also watched a silly Sesame Street Video and listened to the book Balancing Act by Ellen Stoll.

Happy February!

Happy first day of February.  While it was pretty icy in the woods, the temperature wasn't so frigid!  After the woods we began our non-fiction study.  For the next few weeks we will be reading non-fiction and fiction books and today we started learning about Owls.  We watched a short video on owls
and read a nonfiction ebook.  Some facts we learned today:

• Owls usually do not make their own nest but will move into old bird nests. 
• Baby owls are called owlets. 
• Owls are oviparous which means they lay eggs. 
• Owls can lay up to 13 eggs but usually only lay 3 or 4!

We made (adorable) Owl Masks and it was cargo net day in PE!

Happy National Hot Chocolate Day!

I did not plan it but read that it is actually National Hot Chocolate Day which was perfect for our Cat Card Celebration!  This morning we read our last Ezra Jack Keats book, Over in the Meadow.  We then voted on what our favorite Ezra Jack Keats book is and 12 students said A Letter to Amy.  During explore today many students chose to draw on big paper.  This afternoon we had our first Mystery Read of 2018 and enjoyed a warm hot chocolate!

 

Did you know...?

Did you know that a Green Anaconda can be 20 feet long!?  We learned this in a silly song and students made a connection to our work on measurement.  We broke out some measuring tapes and were shocked to see how long 20 feet actually is!

I have been working on completing literacy assessments and part of this is assessing students knowledge of sight words.  At out word work station, students will now have their own individual list of sight words to practice building and writing kept on a ring.  We will keep adding 5 sight words at a time as students learn them.

In math we also practiced counting by 10's to 100.  In measuring with cubes students reported it was tricky when they were measuring something very long.  A suggestion was counting by 10's as it is quicker than counting by 1's.  I love all of the connections they make!

Brrr...

We thought it was cold at recess this morning but then we learned about the arctic and antarctic regions later this morning.  The coldest temperature ever recorded in Antarctica was minus 129F!  We have been reading Mr. Popper's Penguins and students were curious to find out more information about what it is really like in Antarctica. 

This morning we practiced writing lower case l and also worked on creating a list of words from the word family -an.  I read another Ezra Jack Keats book Dreams where the main character was different.  It was not Peter but a boy named Roberto who we had not "met" yet.  We have a few more Ezra Jack Keats books to read this week before starting a non-fiction unit. 

This morning Mrs. Guilmette visited for Guidance this morning and talked about appreciating our unique skin tones and how people get their skin tone.  After we practiced writing sight words in shaving cream.  It was messy but fun and engaging!

This afternoon we did a measurement activity.  Each student was given an item and we worked to line them up from shortest to longest.  It took a few tries but eventually we were successful!

At the end of the day we visited Ms. Beth's dog Liesel in the library.  Some students were thinking of writing books about Liesel and we had the opportunity to ask some questions and learn more about Liesel.

We're Back!

I apologize for the hiatus but the classroom is finally back to "normal" after the flood.  Last Friday students got their new writing folders and have been busy writing books on things that they know and love.  Today I read the book My Dog Rosie and we discussed how authors and illustrators write books on one topic (Rosie was on every page and looked mostly the same) and the words and pictures makes.  Writers also take risks and don't ask "how do you spell...?" but rather if "you can say it, you can spell it!" saying words slowly and writing the sounds that they hear.

We started our third math unit on measurement.  Today we thought about what we think when we hear the word measure or measurement.  I showed this video from Sid the Science Kid to think about how and what we can use to measure objects:

We discussed the importance of using words like: taller than, shorter than, the same length, heavier or lighter instead of bigger and smaller.