Our First Full Week of School

It was so good to begin a regular full-day schedule last week.  We are beginning to learn our schedule and work on stamina for reading and writing.  

We are well into our sight word or word wall word practice now.  One activity we did to practice the sight word "as" was to write similes comparing an animal to some other inanimate object.

Before doing any writing, we read the book "Easy as Pie" and discussed the many sayings that were new to the boys and girls.  Then, everyone picked an animal and let their creative "juices" flow!  Here are some examples:

"The dog is (as) brown as the dirt.:

"The cheetah can run as fast as a car."

"The zebra is as striped as a candy cane."

"The snake is green as grass."

 

In writing, we have been working hard to include at least one adjective in our sentences. We also talked about "stretching" out unknown words and underlining those we aren't sure how to spell.  By doing this students can just keep writing down their thoughts without getting hung-up on the spelling.  Of course, it is an expectation that word wall or sight words be spelled correctly if we have introduced them in class.

In math we have been practicing reading or interpreting data, creating graphs, and discussing the graphs.  We use specific math vocabulary words as seen above during writing and discussions.

As a formulative assessment, the boys and girls worked with a partner to sort, graph, interpret, and discuss a baggie of colored 1" wooden cubes.  They then had to formulate a question and write an answer.

We also play many math games during the week to practice counting.  The game pictured below is called "Ordering Numbers."  Students rolled dice and wrote the numbers in order.  To differentiate we used 6, 10, and 12-sided dice and a number line if needed.

To serve as a remembrance for 9-11, a group of Monmouth College students visited our school.  They read a book tittled "America the Beautiful," had the students listen to the song via CD, and had the boys and girls join in for a verse of the song.

We've had a busy last couple of weeks! The boys and girls have been hard workers in spite of the hot weather!

Snow and Cold Weather Fun!

During the month of January we had many days off from school, but that didn't stop us from making the most of the time when we were together.  We did lots of learning about how snowflakes are formed and learned about states of matter while studying the life cycle of a snowman.  We also practiced looking for, identifying, and using non-fiction text features.  Action verbs and transition words were also incorporated into our writing.

After reading "Sneezy the Snowman" who is constantly trying to get warm, we described how we like to get warm during cold winter days and made some cute snowman faces to help display the writing.

Below are some great "action" pictures with descriptions:

As a follow-up to our study of how snowflakes are formed (see the previous blog), we dove into learning about "states of matter" and used science vocabulary to explain to a melting snowman why he/she shouldn't be sad.  We actually watched a "mini" snowman melt right in our classroom! Once it was in liquid form I heated it up and we watched the "snowman" turn into a gas and vaporize into the air of our classroom.  The boys and girls were amazed that they were breathing in their snowman!

Next, we completed a booklet to review the vocabulary.

 Here are some pictures of our melting snowman:

 Then, everyone completed the following "life cycle" activity:

Last month, some of our readers worked on writing about various processes they chose to read about.  They designed a "flow chart" to describe their topic, practiced what they were going to say to a peer, and then, presented their project to all of their classmates.

 

In math we have been learning a variety of addition strategies.  The boys and girls always enjoy practicing by playing math games with their friends!  Here some of the games:

Next, we will be learning about President Lincoln and President Washington, Washington, D.C., the White House, President and Mrs. Obama.  Of course, there will be a Valentine's Day party on Friday!  Until next time!!