March 28, 2014

Classroom News:

Sorry the update is being posted a day late! I really wanted to add a photo from our taste test on  Friday and didn't have time to do that until this morning.

It was fun to see so many of you at the Fun Fair! Mrs. Thompson and I had a fun time running the limbo station.
 
Literacy Focus: 

Miss Borowski has started reading Red Clover nominated books to the class. The Red Clover award is given to one children's book year and it is voted on by the children of Vermont. Here is a list of this year's nominated books: http://libraries.vermont.gov/sites/libraries/files/cbec/RedCloverNominees13-14.pdf  
Our class will be voting during the week of April 7th. I'll make sure to post on our site which books wins the award! 

This week we've read:
Infiniity and Me by Kate Hosford
Brothers at Bat, by Audrey Vernick
One Cool Friend, by Toni Buzzeo 

Math  Focus: We are deepening our understanding of 2 digit numbers while adding and subtracting them. The children are becoming more flexible in working with tens and ones. We started with our base ten blocks and have moved to representing them on our paper.

At the end of the week, we started developing our list of additive reasoning strategies. We are now focusing on how addition helps us to solve subtraction through the use of fact families.

 

Science:

This week we studied the sense of touch and the sense of taste. The taste test was fun. The children tasted foods that ranged from sour, sweet, bitter, and salty. The bitter chocolate was a big surprise to our young scientists!
 
Social Thinking:
I saw a lot of our classmates demonstrating thoughtfulness this past week. We have been working hard to let others know we are thinking about them and offer a helping hand when needed. 

March 20, 2014

Classroom News:

March 21 is the fun fair from 4:30-6:30. I'll be running the limbo station. Hope to see you there!
 
Literacy Focus: 

More books by  Helen Lester.: Me First and Hooway for Wodney Wat. I love these books! In Hooway for Wodney Wat we read about a shy rat who was able to defeat a bully. The bully was a capybara and we watched a video online to see what a real capybara looks like. Remember The Princess Bride? They look like the ROUS! We watched the first couple of  minutes of this video to see a real life capybara that is someone's pet.

Our stories that we are writing ourselves are coming along! We are looking at books as readers and writers and trying to add into our stories some of the author's craft that Helen Lester uses. Ask your child what the words onomatopoeia and epizeuxis mean!

During independent work time, the kids are spending their time immersed in books. We are reading and exploring topics of interest. Some students are even creating there own books  based on the information they are learning!

Math  Focus:
The mathematicians are working so hard! I love the perseverance! We are using what we  have learned about using base ten blocks to solve story problems with 2 digit numbers. 

March 14, 2014

Classroom News:

Please remember to send coats, boots, mittens, snowpants, and hats to school each day. Thanks!

Friday, March 21 is the Fun Fair, from 4:30-6:30! Hope to see you there!
 
Literacy Focus: 

We are enjoying our author study of  Helen Lester. This week we read Three Cheers for Tacky and Fluffy the Penguin. We wrote a class story about a monkey and we started our own stories about penguins.

Math  Focus:
We continued working with combinations of 10 and then used this information to build 20. The base ten blocks were also used while we worked with 2 and 3 digit numbers.

Science:
We are doing a mini unit on the 5 senses. More information will be posted next week!

Sorry for the short update this week. The snow storm through things off a bit. 

Have a "Happy"weekend! 

March 7, 2014

Classroom News:

What a great week we've had! The kids and I were so excited to be back and to see each other!
 
Literacy Focus: 

We have started an author study where we take a a close look at the books by Helen Lester. This week we read Tacky the Penguin, looking at it through the eyes of readers:  what are the character traits, the big idea of the book. Then we looked at it again through the eyes of writers:  what author's craft devices does Helen Lester use in her books. We will be continuing this study for the next couple of weeks.

Math  Focus:
Ten, ten, ten... we love the number ten! We are looking at ways to make ten, and then using this information to make larger multiples of ten. The mathematicians in the room are loving it!

Science:
We are finishing up our healthy food unit by looking at what makes a healthy snack. The scientists are making stop lights to show which snacks are healthy. Friday we finally made the heart healthy soup that we had to cancel due to our snow day! Yum!

 
The day before vacation, we earned a classroom celebration for all of our green thoughts. For this celebration, we took out the Chinese jump ropes and had so much fun learning how to use them! I highly recommend them as a fun activity that can be done indoors or outside. You buy them right on Amazon. I like to search youtube for videos that teach you different combinations. Here is a video we used during our celebration.