Geometry Begins...

We are going to begin our Topic on Geometry this week...

So via twitter, we're going to post a daily "I have...who has" question to all of those Firsties out there in Twitterville to see what shapes they have too.  Our first try-started off by Mrs. Rudd is "I have a cube, who has a cone?"

Here is the first picture to start off the game...

 

After today, I will let the students run the game.  I wonder how they will want to track the data we receive back via the twitter feed?

 

If you want to play the game, watch for our tweet and then respond to us  and use the hashtag #ihavewhohas to see who else responds with their ideas.

 

Thanks to Karen Lirenman who always gets me thinking outside the box (ways to use twitter in the classroom).

 

#ihavewhohas

Dinosaur Stomp

Watch Kookoo Kangaroo do the Dinosaur Stomp!  Get your best dance moves ready!

Silent E Video

Source: youtube.com via Stephanie on Pinterest

Kookoo Kangaroo Dinosaur Stomp

Koo Koo Kanga Roo Dance-A-Long Video: Dinosaur Stomp

Merry Christmas One and All!

On the last day before winter vacation began, we had a little party to celebrate the season.  Thanks to Angel, who brought in treats to share with the class.  We also had little cuties, apple juice boxes, hershey kisses, skittles and red and green MnMs.  We played sight word bingo with our MnMs and we had enough time to get in 5 winners!  One of the special surprises was hats-Mrs. Rudd made.

Everyone was surprised and our friends throughout the building loved seeing our hats!  The boys' hats had snakes on them and the girls' hats had frogs and hearts on them.  Here are the directions for making the hats if you are interested:

1.  Cut fleece length-wise to go around circumfrence of the head of person to wear hat-most kids were about 20" in length X 18" deep.

2.  Turn fleece inside out and sew middle third of the hat closed with a straight seam.

3.  Double hat over keeping the seam inside and then cut straight strips down from the open end of the fleece about 4-5 inches long each.

4.  Tie fleece in double-knots.

and viola!  You have your hat.

A special thank you to Mrs. Z-(my son's teacher) who originally made them with her class!



Our Christmas Tree Creation

During the first week of December, Robinson had a schoolwide contest to create a Christmas Tree with a Children's Literature Theme.  For our classroom, the children voted and the book they wanted to use was Pete the Cat and His Four Groovy Buttons.  Here is our tree:

We used interactive writing(without sharing the pen)-teacher and students typing while students dictating on the smartboard to think through our beginning, middle and end of the story.  Then, we printed them out and added the sequence to the tree.  Everyone colored their own buttons and garland to add to the tree.  Last, we printed out the cover and added the trunk.  Most people liked our tree.  The winning tree was created by the students in 108 who used non-fiction stories about stars to decorate their tree.

And the Winner Is...

The children voted for their favorite picture book of the year since it's Picture Book Month.  Books like I Want My Hat Back and Enemy Pie were definitely mentioned as well as the non-fiction book Ants...

But this year's favorite picture book so far is...

 

 

Pete is so lovable and he's also very inspirational.  He's got a great attitude-"It's All Good".  He never cries or gets worried-just keeps walking along and singing his song...Thanks Eric Litwin for writing such fun stories about Pete!

Smiling about Ants today...

What a day...

We worked on Read to Someone today-it was our first "official" try at Read to Someone and we reflected on how we did after we read.  We did a great job and tried our best to read with a partner.  We practiced modeling it the wrong way and the right way-the funniest thing we noticed was sitting EEKK!

For science, we started working on our animal project where we'll be researching an animal of our choice and completing an information fair about our animals.  We can't wait to share our learning.  Our first story was called "Ants".  This book is loaded with amazing facts and interesting pictures.  -We noticed and talked about how two the non-fiction features of this text are the photographs and labels.  One funny part of the story that made us all laugh was learning that the aphids are friends with the ants-the ants like eating their "sugary poop".  The evidence in the text is on page 25 if you want to know more about it!

Our friend Mrs. Pramuka designed some awesome organizers to help us with our animal learning project!  Thanks Mrs. Pramuka!

In math, we worked on making tables to show data about parts of 10 and 5.  We used the smartboard to help us sort out our thinking!

We're getting ready to start a new topic in Math-topic 3 Five and Ten Relationships...

In Reading and Language Arts, we're moving on to our next curriculum mapping unit-Animals and Pets.  This week, we'll look closely at investigating animals that come from eggs, especially chickens.  We'll also discuss other farm animals and we'll read about a Wolf, who learns the importance of practicing reading.  Here's a vimeo link called "Chickens Aren't the Only Ones" http://vimeo.com/6240602

We will also continue our quad blogging project and look at the third set of class blogs (Mrs. Martel's class in Canada!).

Hoping to have a great week as we begin to learn about animals and pets-we'll be setting up a survey on our blog about choosing your favorite kind of pet!  Be sure to vote!

Have a great week all!