Classroom Paintings

On the first day of school, students worked together to create a painting that will be hung in our classroom. The students were divided into 4 groups, and each group given a blank canvas and paint. Some groups worked together developing a plan before beginning to paint, others dove right in with each child painting something important to him or herself. I hope you can visit our classroom to see the final four art pieces. They are truly beautiful and a part of our clssroom family.

Drawing Lesson

Hannah's mom was kind enough to come in two different days at the end of the school year to give the children some lessons on drawing. The first day she taught the children some drawing techniques to add texture, and the second day focused on drawing faces. The children were very excited to try out their news ideas and had a lot of fun.

Eric Carle Painting

We had so much fun being messy and creating our Eric Carle paper. We will soon be starting our book about insects using this paper. Students finger painted, marble rolled, made collages, spatter painted, and used brushes to paint their designs. Look at some of our work.

Thank you to Mrs. Rich who was our parent volunteer who helped out, and to Mrs. Simmons the art teacher who loaned us her room for the afternoon.

Quilt Squares

We have been working on making quilt squares in Math Workshop this week. We read several books about quilts and patterns, and watched a Reading Rainbow video on it as well. Students selected a pattern to replicate on paper and discussed in their group how to make the shapes. Each shape begins as a square, and it was up to them to decide how to transform it into the triangles and rectangles found in the pattern.

I hope you will be able to visit the school next Thursday night for the Art and Education event. You will be able to see your child's artwork from special area class, as well as work they have done in our classroom.

Coin Rubbings

To go along with our money project, we did an activity suggested by Mrs. Simmons the art teacher. Students created their own coins using foil and paper. Everyone made a template of a face either as a profile or looking straight at you. They cut it out and added layers of card stock or string to the paper to give it thickness. When they placed the foil over the template and rubbed, all of the edges came through, and you could see lots of details just like on a regular coin. They also added designs and decorations to the front using an etching technique. I was very pleased with their efforts and impressed with the detail they put forth on this activity. I know they enjoyed working with their own coin designs.

Weekly Update

We have been learning many new things this week We read a couple books about George Washington Carver, and learned that he discovered hundreds of new uses for peanuts. He also taught farmers how to do crop rotation and that is was beneficial to their plants.

In math we have continued our practice of double digit addition with regrouping. We will be taking a test on this concept on Friday. Next week we will be starting subtraction with regrouping.

In Writing Workshop, students are working on how-to books, and writing about something they know how to do well. Some of their ideas are how to make oatmeal, how to draw a dragon, and how to build a lego plane.

Many children have moved up a level in Reading Workshop. I am excited to see their progress and that they are making good use of the reading strategies we have learned about.

In science, our amaryllis plant has grown quite a bit. Today the students measured it, and it is already 7 cm. tall.

For project we are learning about money. Students were very interested so far in how it is made, and would like to take a field trip to one of the United States Mints. I explained that they are both too far away, but they said we can just take a plane to get there. So...please let me know if you would be willing to sponsor this trip..HaHa! We will be partnering with the art teacher on an activity to print our own money, and work on other representations in the classroom.

Leaf Rubbings

Mrs. Simmons, the art teacher, shared an activity with me that she has done in the past with the 5th graders. Since we have been learning about leaves, I decided to let the students try it out. They created leaf rubbings using pastels as their medium. Here are some of their creations.