Science ROCKS!!!

I have been so busy taking pictures of all the fun things we have been doing that I haven't had a chance to post them so you can see all the action! Here are a few (hundred) of them.

We have worked on our own as well as with partners. One of the partner activities that we have done, has been to put two things into a circle and your partner has to guess what property they share.

We have also worked on building towers using different materials and boy was that fun! I loved watching the children discover what worked for making things go higher and what didn't.
There were a lot of intent expressions and serious thoughts taking place.

Some students decided it might be a good idea to combine their materials.

I don't know who is enjoying this science unit more - me or the students!

Make way for Technology!

Don't Forget! November Reading Logs are due by Friday and I am sending home December ones today!

What a wonderful Tuesday! We had such a fun and exciting day doing all sorts of new things. In the morning we connected with our 2nd grade pen pals at McKay in a whole new way. Mrs. Schimel and I are experimenting with some new technology and with it, we are able to connect our two smart boards and computers so that our two classrooms are seeing and working on the same flipchart together. We can see them move things around and then we can use our pen and tools to move things around too. The students were convinced it was some form of magic!

Here is a flipchart we were working on together - Making Money. We would take turns pulling coins out of the box and then the other class would count the money and write the amount. It was so much fun!

KB is laughing because she can't believe that they can see what she is doing.

If you look closely you can see the pen is above the dime and they (our pen pals) are using it to draw the touch points before the count the money. Amazing! We had to stop for recess but we will most definitely be doing this kind of thing again. Way to go Pen Pals!

Also in the morning, we wrote letters to Santa. We made sure to tell him how we have been good this year and we also asked him very important questions like: Do you go on vacation? Do you celebrate Christmas? Does Rudolph really have a red nose? Then we asked very politely for a few things for Christmas.

AC is working very hard to make sure all his words are spelled correctly:

Some more serious writers:

When we were done writing we also colored a picture to go with it:

I will be taking these letters to the East Oregonian and submitting them for their special Christmas Newsletter that comes in the December 24th edition of the paper. Be watching to see if your student's letter is included!


We also squeezed in some time for a few math games: This one is an adding game called Flip It.

This is a fraction bingo game:

We practiced our spelling words a little bit on spelling city:

But the most fun part of our day was when it was time for Science! We have a guest teacher at our school who is in the graduate program at the University of Oregon. He is a scientist and he is showing us how to be like him. How to think like a scientist, observe like a scientist and question like a scientist.

We got to do an investigation today to begin our unit on solids and liquids. We were given some materials and allowed to explore them. Our directions were to feel them, touch them, have them interact together and then see what happened. We also had to think of how to describe them.

We took a break and wrote some words down on our word bank that described our materials. We made a list of some of their properties.

Then we were given a few more things to work with.

We will be doing more experiments and science investigations for the next two weeks. Be warned! Your children might start doing some experiments at home too!

Glitter and Glue

On the Friday before our week off we did a couple of fun things. Two reading groups had just finished a unit test and so they were able to choose a Reader's Theatre story that they would perform for the class. The Green group chose the story of How Bear Lost His Tail.

They each had a part in the story and they worked really hard on reading with expression and fluency so that their audience would be able to listen and follow along easily.

The Red Group chose the story of The Lion and The Hare.

Their reading sounded so good! They had been practicing and practicing their parts and I loved hearing the difference from the first time they read their parts to when they read to the class.

In the afternoon we did an art project and since it will be Christmas before I know it, we went ahead and decorated some ornaments. I got out the glitter and glue and the students cheered as though I was Santa himself. First they carefully colored their ornaments and then they would glue and glitter and then glue and glitter and then glue and glitter some more.

They turned out beautiful and we will hang them in our hallway for a couple of weeks and then send them home for you to enjoy!

Stars, Fall and Veteran's Day

I feel like it should still be September! I am amazed as another week races by that we are going to be getting ready for Christmas before I know it. Where does the time go?

Every minute at school we are busy learning. I feel like I hardly have time to pick up the camera but I am working on it and I wanted to share a few pictures with you.

We have had two "Stars of the Week" since I lasted posted and both created very good posters and shared interesting information about themselves. Here is BC's:

And here is CT's:

We made time for art the other day and I had fun doing a new art project with the students. They turned out beautiful and we have received many compliments. Look at a few of our fall reflections:

Veteran's Day is always a day where we have good discussions and I always love to see how serious the children can be about important topics such as death and honor. We watched a short 10-minute video on Veteran's Day and then we read a few books. One of the books we read was called The Wall by Eve Bunting. A little boy and his Dad go to the Vietnam War Memorial and they look for the grandfather's name. The boy shares his thoughts throughout the book and they are honest and candid. A soldier is there and he is missing his legs, people are there crying, a boy his age is walking with his grandfather. The book is wonderful and I always have to fight back tears. When I finished reading the story, a neat thing happened. The children started clapping. They have never clapped at the end of a story before. This was the first serious book that we have read together and I think they felt the emotion of it and recognized how good of a book it was. Their clapping made me proud of them.

After that, we made Christmas and Holiday cards for soldiers in Iraq. Again, your children amazed me. Take a look:

This one says: Thank you for fighting for us. Be safe please.

What a special group of children!