Weekly Update

Books read this week:

Weather: Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs, Pickles to Pittsburgh, June 29, 1999

What Do You Do with a Tail Llike This?- differences in animals' tails, mouths, eyes, ears, etc.

We have been working on using commas in our writing and also started literacy groups this week with all of first grade. Thank you to Mrs. Han who has been working so hard on the courtyard this week. The students will be helping her plant after break. I hope everyone ejoys their time off!

Geometry

In math we have been learning about geometry. Students are becoming familiar with different shapes and patterns through hands on materials like pattern blocks, pentaminoes, and tanagrams. Menu math games allow the children to practice concepts previously learned in class.

Logic Links

As part of our curriculum we practice doing Thinking Skills several times a week. One game we have been playing recently is called Logic Links. This game increases our logical thinking and is made up of a series of puzzles that instruct the children where to place colored chips and solve the puzzle. Logic Links makes you think sideways, backwards, right to left and up and down as you solve the puzzles.

Weekly Update

Books read this week:

• Bartholomew and the Oobleck-experiemented with our own oobleck and discussed solids and liquids
• The Dinosaurs of Waterhouse Hawkins- biography about the first person to make life size models of the dinosaurs. Discussed how ideas change over time.
• Amazing Grace- diversity and acceptance
• Among the Odds and Evens- review of odd and even numbers and patterns
• Twizzler Shapes- geometry introduction to new shapes

We have also begun doing 45 second timed tests on the basic addition and subtraction facts to ensure fluency.

Please continue to send in items for the cafeteria baskets. The children are enjoying them very much. We especially are looking for Mad Libs, word searches, cards, card games, crayons, magna doodles, dry erase markers, finger puppets, books, etc.

Ooey, Gooey, Oobleck

We made oobleck in class after we read the book by Dr. Seuss: Bartholomew and the Oobleck. It was about a king who wanted a different type of weather to come down from the sky. Oobleck came down and got stuck on everything. When the students first saw the oobleck in class, they thought it would be a liquid, but then they were surprised when they touched it and it seemed like a solid. We debated about which form of matter it really was. It is actually neither a solid or liquid but has properties from both stages of matter. Formally it is known as a non-Newtonian subtance. This means that when a small amount of force is used, it acts like a liquid, but when more force is applied, it acts like a solid.

Oobleck Recipe

2 cups of corn starch, 3 drops of green food coloring, enough water to make a thick mixture (about the texture of pancake batter) I usually measure equal amounts of water and corn starch, but mix water in slowly.

Hold and Fold

Teaching geometry is one of my favorite things in math. Today we talked about different shapes using a square piece of paper that we folded into different forms. Students created these shapes and traced them onto a piece of paper. Emphasis was placed on the concept that shapes can be rotated or turned, and might even be different sizes- but they will still be the same shape.

Weekly Update

Here are a list of the books wew have studied this week in class:



Grandfather Tang's Story- used to learn about tanagrams and shapes for math

Tomorrow's Alphabet-making predictions, higher level thinking. We also wrote our own version.

Biggest, Strongest, Fastest- interesting text about animal facts. Very intriguing to the class.

George Wahington Carver- biography to learn about this famous American

Jamie O'Rourke and the Pooka/Potato- two St/ Patrick's Day books written by Tomie dePaola who was featured in this week's Scholastic News


We will continue our study next week in geometry; illustrating our fairy tales; pebbles, sand, and silt; and thinking skills.

Hope everyone has a great weekend!

Fish

Last weekend I added some new fish that we adopted from the aquarium that used to be in the front entranceway. Two of those fish have since died. One was called "broken tail fish" because he was slightly deformed when I added him to the tank. I couldn't bring myself to flush him, even though I felt like he would problably die soon. So yesterday he received a proper burial after passing away. The other fish was nicknamed "pogo stick" because he kept jumping vertically up and down- which was not normal for a fish. He died today too.

It has been interesting to observe the children's reactions to the fish this week. They have been very interested in the strange behaviour of the fish, but were not outwardly upset when they died, just scientifically curious about the changes occurring.

Jingle, Jingle

Students have eagerly been bringing in money to school for the Walk-a-Thon. This week we raised over $70 and completely filled up our container. We had to put the extra coins in a ziplock baggie. Each day we have been counting the money in our container by grouping one dollar's worth of coins together.