Bones and Big Pumpkin

Important Dates:
November 8 - early dismissal (12:15)
November 20 - no school parent/teacher conferences
November 20-24 - no school

We had our first whole school celebration last week! Each grade represented one of the HEART expectations. Then we had a whole school parade which ended in the cafeteria where we got to see a science and magic show!

And... we filled out jar again! I can't believe how many hearts this class earns! More info about our celebration next week.


We examined bones this week! I had sheep bones that the students got to examine. Then, we talked about our own bones. The students drew and labeled skeletons. Then they created skeletons out of Q-tips!

Literacy:
We are having fun with Halloween books. One of my favorite books is Big Pumpkin by Erica Silverman. The class was able to connect the bigger theme of teamwork in this book to the book Swimmy by Leo Lionni.

We have such a class of writers! Our unit we are working on is writing about small moments. The writers think about a small moments (such as me dropping a basket of markers) and then stretch it out to write a whole book about it. We have such daring writers! They get right to work and they don't want to stop!

Math:


We have learned a new type of math story problem. These are called combination problems. In these problems, we are given the whole (the total) and need to figure out the parts (addends). An example is:
I had 9 things on my plate. Some are peas. Some are carrots. How many of each could I have? How many peas? How many carrots?

In these problems we find many equations that equal the sum. This picture shows one student's work.

Getting rid of the germs!

Important Dates:

Monday, October 16 - library
Wednesday, October 18 - Early Release
Wednesday, October 18 5:30 PTO meeting
Thursday and Friday October 19. 20 - No School
Monday, October 23 - Morning Meeting

Last week we sent home invitations to come to our morning meeting on October 23. We do morning meeting from 8:20-8:50. Hope to see you there!

We earned another class celebration this week! I can't believe how many hearts this class earns each day! They are rock stars with our heart expectations: Honest, Engaged, Appropriate, Responsible, and Timely. It was almost a tie when we voted on our celebration: Wild Kratts or extra indoor recess. Since the class has been working so hard and the vote was so close, we did both!

We had Nurse Liz come and talk to us all about germs and how to keep ourselves healthy. Liz taught us how to wash our hands correctly. Then, she put special "germs" on our hands. The students looked at their hands under a black light. then everyone had to wash their hands and recheck. We all did great using the hand washing technique that Liz showed us. Bye-bye germs. We don't want you here!

Literacy:
We read three great books this week:
The Recess Queen, by Alexis O'Neil
Alphabet Adventure, by Audrey Wood and Bruce Wood
Alphabet Mystery, by Audrey Wood and Bruce Wood

As readers, we are looking for how a character changes in the story. The students did a great job noticing how Jean, the Recess Queen, changed from the beginning to the end. Now, we are even looking for these changes in characters in our own independent reading.

Math:
The class is a doing a great job on using the number line to show addition and subtraction. To reinforce this concept, we played a Froggy on the Number Line Game that Miss Sarah created. We have worked hard on:

1) Understanding that numbers get bigger on the number when you add and you are going forward. Numbers get smaller on the number line when you subtract and you are going backwards.

2) Addition is part + part = whole
     Subtraction is whole - part = part

Another great week!

Important Dates:

Monday, October 16 - library
Wednesday, October 18 - Early Release
Wednesday, October 18 5:30 PTO meeting
Thursday and Friday October 19. 20 - No School


Wow! This class works so hard! I am amazed by all the work they do and how hard they push their brains.

One day this week we earned 189 hearts! Another day we earned 188 hearts! Unfortunately, I had to stop counting the hearts because children are putting the hearts in their mouths. We have been talking about how when you put a heart in your mouth and then put it in the heart jar, the germs go on all the hearts. We are working hard at not spreading germs. Once that habit stops I will get back to counting hearts.


Literacy:
We finished the book One this week. Oh how I love this book. After reading the book, we watched a class act it out and then we acted it out too.We also have done quite a bit of writing in our writing journals about the book.Finally we ended the week by working on a project based on the story. I love this book. The kids did too.

We also discussed the different ways and places people like to read. We have been trying out places in the room to see what works best for each of us. We then made an anchor chart showing the different

places we all like to read.

We also have started Word Study. We learn spelling during this time of the day through the Fundations program. This program is highly interactive plus I am making most of the lessons on the smartboard. The kids love using technology in their learning.

Math:
We've continued our work of understanding ways to represent our thinking and connecting our representation to the equation. The number line is our new math tool that we are exploring. The number line is another way for mathematicians to represent their thinking. Exposing students to a variety of math tools helps students become more flexible with their mathematical thinking.