American Red Cross Heart Challenge

Our gym teacher, Mr. Z wrote an essay for a contest to the American Heart Association. His essay won and our school received gym equiptment that helps teach how our hearts pump blood inside our body. Below are pictures and video showing the obstacle course. What a fun way to learn such an important concept!

 

Surfer of the Week

Riley's mom and little brother came in today. She read two stories to the class. The students really loved seeing Riley's 3 month old baby brother. They had so many questions and compliments for him =).

More Plants!

We completed an activity where we used four different objects to identify the parts of a plant. We used a lima bean for the seed, yarn for the roots, pipe cleaners for the stem and green tissue paper for the leaves.

Plant/Not a Plant

Today, we completed an activity with pictures of various items. Each student had one picture and when it was their turn they had to decide if their picture was a plant or was not a plant. Before we began, we discussed what makes a plant special. The class came up with roots, stem, leaves, seeds, flowers and photosynthesis (yes, I was proud of that word too)! We had a great week learning about plants and are excited to continue right into next week and learning about Earth Day!

Riley brought his soccer trophy to share with the class. He was very excited to share and talk about soccer!


He also brought in his family dog Rambo, Rammy for short. Rammy loved our classroom and the students!

Clocks!

I introduced a new activity for math by myself. This activity is all about clocks. The students have a stack of cards where on one side shows the time with numbers “8:30” and the other side has the correct answer drawn on a clock. Before the student flips the card over to see how it looks on a clock, they are to make their clock show the correct time. After setting the time, the student flips the card over to check the answer.

Number Stories

We worked with the number 10 today. We made our "Story of 10" chart. We used ten plastic cups to determine how many of each number makes ten. We counted how many cups were facing down, compared to how many cups were facing up. We filled in the missing blanks of our story chart and hung it up in our room!

Sharing Time

Riley is our surfer of the week. He brought in his football to share with the class. He said he loves to play football with his dad and brother.

Parts of a Flower!

We practiced the parts of a flower today. We made our own flowers and labeled them. Several students also added their own sun, rain, grass and other flowers to their picture when they were finished. We also watched a great video to the tune of "head, shoulder, knees and toes" that went through each part of the flower.

Listening Station!

We have not had a listening station for the past 3 weeks. Our old station stopped working one day and our new one arrived in the mail yesterday! We were very excited that our new station was able to play cds, as well as tapes. Below are pictures of our listening station and the cards each student receives as their "job" when they go to the station. Each student is given a specific job to help the station run smoothly.

Kinder"garden"!

Our first lesson in learning about plants! We took bean seeds, wet paper towel and potting mix and put them all together inside a baggie. We are going to watch them grow for the next two weeks. We are excited to watch the beans sprout with stems and roots. We might even be lucky enough to see a leaf or two.

10th Surfboard Award!

We earned our 10th surfboard as a class! We have a mystery bag of prizes. I pulled "extra recess" out of the bag. Today the rain stopped and the sun shined long enough to play outside!