November 2, 2015

I can't believe the month of October is already over. It was a very exciting month with our study of bats and spiders.

For the month of November we are going to be continuing our work on handwriting with our new handwriting booklet. The children still continue to struggle with the concept of a capital letter.


For word work, we read the book A Turkey for Thanksgiving by Eve Bunting and learned four new vocabulary words: peer, insist, bellow, and lumber.

I am really looking forward to wrapping up our study of bats and spiders this week. It has been such a funny mini unit, with great research and nonfiction reading.  

We have started our study of geometry and arrays in math. Last week, we also started working on math fluency with addition, subtraction and multiplication. Each student gets to work at his/her own pace so the sky is the limit!  

October 9, 2015

Happy Friday everyone!
Today, we listened to and read a story about bats, on RAZ- Kids. 

We have been studying these fascinating creatures this week and are amazed at the variety of species.  In addition, we have learned some great new vocabulary like: insectivore, echolocation, sonar, and adaptation. 

We have compared and contrasted birds and bats, by reading the story Stellaluna. You can have  your child listen to the book on line here-  Stellaluna- audio book, read aloud 

In writing, we wrote about an experience with a spider.  They will be displayed outside of our classroom. If you have a chance to stop by, you can use Aurasma to scan the pictures. This will pull up a video of the author reading their own story. Here is a quick video on what Aurasma is- 

Aurasma

You can download the app for free. 

October 8th, 2015

Today in class we had our first Mystery Skype with Ms. Walls class in North Carolina.  What is a Mystery Skype you ask?  Another class somewhere in the United States, and ours connects through Skype. We try and figure out what state they are located in by asking yes or no questions, kind of like 20 questions format. Afterwards, we ask each others classes about their school or town. It was really fun.

September 29, 2015

Paper Blogging

Today, we launched our first day of blogging, with paper blogs. This was so much fun, as the kids designed their own avatars and learned about internet safety.  They then wrote one a blog post on a sticky note. Their friends were able to respond with a different colored sticky.  I am really looking forward to getting into real blogging for an authentic audience. 

September 27, 2015

What a beautiful fall week we had last week. I am hoping that this week coming up,will be just as wonderful. As we move into October, keep an eye on the weather forecast. Often times a jacket will be needed for lunch and afternoon recess.

Thank you to all of the parents who came to curriculum night. If for some reason you were not able to make it, I would be more that happy to send you the power point presentation. Please remember to sign up for conferences, you can do this by calling the main office.

This Wednesday is Picture Day. You order pictures on line or send your form into school. 

Recapping last week- 

Reading- We continued to build our stamina, of reading for longer periods of time without interruption. We started a new author study of the books written by, Cynthia Rylant. Ms. Rylant has written some of our favorite beginning reader chapter books like, Henry and Mudge, Mr. Putter and Tabby, and Poppleton. 

Writing- We are gathering ideas for our small moments pieces. In addition we talked about the difference between a watermelon story and a seed story. 

Spelling- We kicked of spelling last week with words that have a short a sound. 

Language arts centers- At the beginning of every month, I change the language arts cents. So, this week there will be all new and exciting things to learn about. 

Math- We are wrapping up our study of addition strategies and have been playing many different kinds of games with addition. 

Science- Our study of soil allowed us to observe worms, make compost baggies, sprout some beans, and do two very fun and challenging STEAM (science, technology, engineering, arts, and math) activity. As groups the children had to design a flower garden out of some school art supplies, that had all the parts of the plant, all the colors of the rainbow, within a certain height requirement, and had to be free standing. It was a wonderful activity to straighten our creativity, communication, and collaboration skills. The second activity, was called Save Freddy. Freddy was a gummy worm, that was lost a sea. His boat capsized with his life vest under it. The children were given paper clips and told to right Freddy's boat and get him into his life vest (gummy Life Saver) without touching him. Team work, cooperation, and communication were the answer to Freddy's prayers. 

Social studies- We focused on urban areas last week. This week we will be finishing our study of big cities, like Chicago and talking about why people live in communities. 

Technology- Almost everyone has mastered the art of logging into the Chrome Books. This requires a lot of attention to detail, and following a multi stepped process. Our main focus has been how to enter usernames and passwords. This week coming up we will begin paper blogging and learning internet etiquette and safety.  

I am looking forward to another great week, in P5. 

September 21, 2015

We are off to a great start! 
I am really looking forward to seeing everyone at curriculum night this Thursday at 7:00 p.m. This is such a wonderful time to see your son/daughter's classroom and chat with the other parents. If for some reason you can not make curriculum night, you can go to our class website and find the power point presentation.