Look at the words we can spell!

We are learning how to spell words that belong to a family.  This week our word family was the "uck" family.  We read a book about a truck that got stuck in the muck!  Then we practiced spelling "uck" words on the iPad using Screen Chomp.  The next day we worked with a partner to see how many "uck" words we could spell in 5 minutes.  Mrs. Betts was very impressed with our thinking!  We then write our words in a word family house and post it in our classroom so we can refer to it when we do our writing

Buckets of good things!

Last week we read a book called "How Full is Your Bucket" byTom Rath and Mary Reckmeyer. The book is illustrated by Maurie, J. Manning.  It is based on the idea that everyone has an invisible bucket that they carry around with them. When our bucket is full we feel really good but when out bucket is empty, we don't feel so good. In this story,  a little boy named Felix  begins to see how every interaction in a day either  fills or empties his invisible bucket.  Felix learns how easy it is to fill someone's bucket and how this action then helps his bucket become full.



After reading the book we talked about how we can fill our classmates buckets.  We have started a bulletin board in our room.  The students can take a heart or star and write down how their bucket was filled and by whom.  We then put our comments on our board for others to see.  We try and fill each others bucket every day.

Have you filled someone's bucket today?

Boo!

Buddy Art

Last week during buddies we looked at the art form of silhouettes to create an image.  We then tried to use Halloween silhouettes to create a  picture.  The object was to create a black and white Halloween scene.  What do you think?  Were we successful?

Do you see the logic?

In Math today we played a logic game with a bat and some pumpkins.  The object of the game is not to end up with the bat.  You can take one or two pumpkins when it is your turn.  Here is how you play.
1. Spread the pumpkins and bat out on a table or the floor.
2. Decide who goes first.  We decided this by doing rock, paper, scissors. 
3. Take one or two pumpkins when it is your turn.
4. Try not to be left with the bat!

After we played for a bit we talked about the strategies that worked for us.  Does it matter who starts?  Does it matter how many pumpkins are in your starting pile?  Play it and see if you can find some strategies that work for you!

All Hands Accounted For!

We have been learning about patterns and how important and useful they are to learning math skills.  We have learned to make patterns using actions like clapping and snapping; using words and using manipulatives.  Now we are transferring that knowledge to numbers!  We started with a review of counting by 5s and 10s.  First we had to trace our hands 3-5 times and put them in a bucket.  This was good practice for us!  Then we got a partner and a pile of hands.  Our job was to put the hands on strips of paper and label them with a 5.  After we did that we grouped them into 10s.  We wrote 2 math equations . . . 5+5+5 etc.  then 10+10+10+5 . . . etc.  The next day we worked in groups of 3.  We had to add all three strips of hands together.  We had lots of hands to count and add! 

Big Cats

Last week we began to learn about the features of non-fiction books.  We talked about the organization of non-fiction books and how wonderful it is that you can pick up a non-fiction book and start reading it anywhere.  There is no beginning, middle and end like in story books!  We also learned that most, but not all fact books have a table of contents, an index and a glossary (which is really like a mini dictionary!)  Our class got a fantastic book from the book fair called Big Cats.  It is a fascinating book because on the flip side is information all about Elephants which we are excited to read during our next guided reading sessions. 

After reading about Big Cats, Mrs. Betts introduced us to a new response sheet.   On this response sheet we choose facts that we have read and that are new and interesting to us and record them on the paper. We also spend time illustrating our fact because we learned that lots of information comes from illustrations!  Here is a sample of some of our work!  We are really proud of our selves.  We can't wait to read more information books!

It's All About the Details!

Today we read a story by Eric Carle, called “A House for Hermit Crab.”  It is a story about a little hermit crab that makes a new home for himself.  As he makes his way through the water his house becomes more interesting as different animals start to make a home for themselves on his shell.

After reading the story we talked about how hermit’s house became more interesting to others because of the details that were added.  We then related or “connected” this to our writing.  To make our writing more interesting for the reader we need to add more details.

The students were very excited to get busy with their writing and added much more detail.  You are welcome to read your child's Journal during Noisy Reading time! 

 

Cobra Research

The King Cobras have been very interested in finding out more about our namesakes!  We have looked at pictures, shared our background knowledge about cobras and done some reading about cobras. 
We also practiced drawing cobras during a directed drawing lesson on-line!  We are very proud of our art.  Here are a few of our cobras. 

After we did some research to find out where cobras live, what they look like, what they eat, and how their babies are born, we chose one fact to print under each of those following headings:  Appearance, Habitat, Diet, and Life Cycle. After printing our fact we illustrated each fact to show our knowledge.

Educating the mind without educating the heart is no education at all ~ Aristotle