Polar Bear Snow Globes!

To finish off our week of learning about Arctic Animals we made polar bear snow globes. We decided since we wouldn't be able to go on a field trip to visit polar bears in their natural habitat we would make a snow globe where we could imagine watching them swim, play, roll and climb in the snow!

Penguin Play!

Olivia G's mother came in today to help celebrate her week to be "Surfer of the Week". She brought a penguin book to read to the class and we played a couple of penguin games after! Throughout the week, we learned how penguins take care of their babies. We practiced handing over the baby penguin inside its egg only using our feet, just like mommy and daddy penguins do! We also tried walking with balloons between our ankles and ended up being forced to waddle instead!

Penguins, Penguins, Penguins!

Before reading a story to learn more about penguins each student wrote his/her name on a post-it and placed it under each question taking a guess "yes" or "no". While reading the story we referred back to the chart when each question was answered! Later in the day we made penguins on a plate and fed them yummy goldfish and glued them on their bellies!

Opinion Writing!

Today I introduced "Opinion Writing". We first started off by discussing what an opinion is. We came up with a definition that an opinion is a personal belief, idea or thought about something that cannot be solved. An opinion cannot necessarily be considered "right" or "wrong". When giving an opinion it is important to support your opinion with one, two or three reasons as to why you believe what you do. We practiced with comparing two pictures and giving our opinion on which one we liked better and why! We will continue working with opinion writing for the next several weeks and will be eventually writing our own opinions on several topics including book reviews, animals and much more!

What's New to Daily 5 Math?!?!

We have had several new choices introduced to our Daily 5 Math choices.....


As a class, we always complete a "Number of the Day" activity. After doing this lesson for a couple of months, I decided the class was ready to try this on their own as a Number Work option. The student rolls his/her dice, writes the number at the top of the dry erase board and continues on to complete multiple ways to show how that number can be made!






During our Math with Someone choice, these students are practicing the skill greater than, less than and equal to. Each student grabs any amount of bears out of the bag. They count how many they took, write the number on their board, tell their partner their number and then they decide who has greater than, less than or in some cases equal to!





Our math series came with several ready made partner games and I have found them to be extremely easy to teach and place in the Math with Someone choice. The two games we currently have as an option focus on counting on to twenty and describing shapes!


A new Math by Myself choice focuses on the different ways to make ten using a ten frame. The student sets the ten frame up using ten counters, all the same color facing up. He/she rolls the dice and whatever number is turned up is then shown on the ten frame by turning the number of counters over that was rolled. Once the counters are turned over, the student counts the different sets and recites an addition problem "6 + 4=10" and so on depending on what number is rolled!





We have a new option during our Daily 5 Math time! I was able to purchase several new books that are focused on math concepts. I am passing the books with a tape and a tape recorder around to various people in the school to record the story on a tape and the students can "Listen to Math" as a new choice! The first story we listened to was called "Tyrannosaurus Math".

Syllable Practice!

Throughout our the week when we studied and learned all about syllables we brought in items that were special to each of us to not only practice syllables, but to learn a little bit more about each other. Our first day each student brought in his/her favorite stuffed animal from home and we clapped our the number of syllables of either the animals name or something special about it. On the second day (the pictures are below) we each brought in a special picture/photograph and told about it before clapping out the syllables. On the final day, we brought in a piece of our favorite candy, clapped out the syllables and then ate the candy! We had a fun week learning all about syllables!

100's Day Fun Continued!

The 100th day of school was jampacked with activities that we had to move a few to another day. One of those activities was searching the room for numbers and coloring them in on a hundreds chart. If the chart was filled in correctly, the number 100 appeared!

Surfer of the Week--Deandre!

Thank you Deandre for being such a great surfer of the week for us. We enjoyed getting to know you even better, listening to your mom read a story, watching you dance like Michael Jackson and meeting your pet hamster!