Hello Red Fox

We read the Eric Carle book Hello Red Fox for our author study, and as usual the children loved it. It is a story of a birthday party that shows that things are not always what they appear to be. This book is filled with characters that change colors before your eyes--a green fox turns red, a yellow butterfly, purple, and many, many more. It uses an optical illusion phenomenon called complimentary afterimage

Here is a link that explains what is happening and why we see the opposite colors when reading the book.

http://www.eric-carle.com/bb-HRFnotes.html

Analogies & Friday Clubs

Today we worked on analogies in class. Analogies are all about figuring out how things go together or are related. Thinking skills you can develop through analogies include reasoning and
information processing.

Students also went to their first club meeting today. Yesterday they were able to choose their top three, and were assigned an activity for the next month. Clubs will meet each Friday with a teacher, assistant, or parent volunteer, working with a small group of students from different classrooms and grade levels. Examples of this year's clubs include board games, card games, building, tea party, Spanish, sign language, and more. My club is about school improvement, and we will be working on cleaning up around the school, planting flowers, and creating a rock garden.

Geo Shapes

New games are always fun to play, especially when they are a part of our new unit on geometry. This game had students working together to be the first team to complete two shapes on their game board. Every team had a circle divided into fourths, as well as an irregular shape to fill with other pieces. Students had to make decisions about how to obtain new shape pieces for their section and which ones to discard after each turn.

Reading Tent

Students who pass a Reading Counts quiz can opt to sit in the reading tent on the same day. Only two students are allowed inside at any time though. This has been a fun new treat for the students, and they are enjoying it a lot.

Pentominoes

In math we have been learning about area and measuring it in square units this week in math. Students have begun working with pentominoes and manipulating the 12 different pieces to complete puzzles and explore this measurement concept.