Face Mapping?

Face mapping seems a little unusual, but it was a great way to reinforce cardinal directions.  Students create a portrait of themselves and label the parts.  Next, they had to use cardinal directions to describe what was on their face.   These will be placed in their student portfolios. 

NECCO Graph

We have complied all the information from our individual graphs into a class graph.   Here are some interesting things we noted:

  1.  We thought white would be the color with the most, but it turned out to be pink. 

  2.   The 16 brown ones did not surprise us because when we were graphing a lot of students were saying they did not have any.  The conclusion  was that brown was a rare color. 

  3.  We wondered if pink, which has the most, is the worst color?  Not everyone picked pink as a favorite color.  Most of us preferred the green or yellow. 

  4.  It was suggested that NECCO consider making a blue that tasted like blueberry and/or red that tasted like cherry. 

  I have put all this information and more into a letter to NECCO.  

We will see if our work will have any impact on what NECCO decides to do. 

Mapping Our World

Here are the results of our mapping activity.  You will see these pictures again when looking at your child's portfolio.  I hope they will be able to share with you the important components of a map and explain some of the symbols used. 

Mapping

The Superheroes continue to develop map skills by working on a cooperative group activity. 

 First we read, Mapping Penny's World and then students were divided into groups of four.

  Each group had to read a list of instructions to create a map.

  For example, the instructions stated: draw a school in the middle of your paper. Next, draw a pond east of the school.  

It was a great afternoon activity and the students had a lot of fun learning about maps. 

The Cloud Experiment

See first hand how we turned a cotton ball into a cumulonimbus cloud!

The Cloud Experiment

After exploring clouds through books, power points and art we decided to try an experiment.  Can you really make it rain using a cotton ball?  Well, yes you can!  First you have to decide between the two types of clouds that produce precipitation; cumulonimbus or stratus. 

 Next, the student created the cloud type using cotton balls.

  Finally, how many drops of water does it take before it begins to rain?

Marshmallow Shooters

What do you do when you are stuck in a classroom for days because of rain?  Learn how to make marshmallow shooters!  As you can see The Superheroes had a great time working cooperatively to make the shooters and then got in a little exercise chasing down the marshmallows. 

What Type of Cloud is That???

Rainy weather lends itself to studying the weather.  This week we took an in depth look at clouds.  We studied the three basic types and learned about the storm cloud.  Next, the students tried to recreate the different clouds using the knowledge they have gained.  We also included information from our art planner when we made horizon lines and talked about perspective. 

Where We Are in Time and Place

The Superheroes continue to explore maps and symbols and how people use them to communicate.  Today we tried something new and used map concepts to map out a story we read: Rosie's Walk.  The students had to recreate the story using a map key, compass and symbols.  

 As you can see, they are working hard and enjoying the assignment. 

Bash Project

The Superheroes bash project!

  A magnetic white board surrounded by silhouettes of the students. 

Winter Party

The Superheroes are doing an amazing job of working together and following the Learner Profile!  As a result, we have once again filled that jewel jar.   The students voted on a 'winter' party.  This included a special viewing of the movie, Frozen.   It was so cute to hear the whole class break into song when Let It Go came on.  (I enjoyed singing too, but I only know the chorus!).   

My amazing parents once again came through in a moments notice and supplied homemade sugar cookies, icing (blue and white of course) and various decorating items.   

Needless to say the party was a HUGE success. 

 Thank you everyone for your donations and for those who came and helped me set up and clean up.  

You are so appreciated!!

NECCO Math???

Today we used rolls of NECCO wafers for our math lesson.

  First, we worked on creating bar graphs to show how many we had of each color.  

(Brown seems to be the color we had the least of)

Next, we will use our individual graphs to create a class graph to show how many 

of each color for the whole class. 

 Finally, we  will make observations, wonderings and questions and write to the NECCO company to let them know what our findings were. 

FIELD DAY!!

Neither rain, nor cold will keep us from having an awesome time on Field Day!  The Superheroes had a lot of fun competing in different activities.  Coach Jody did a great job organizing all the events so that the students would not be outside too long.  I think the parachute was the class favorite! 

Let the Games Begin!!

Field Day Opening

HAPPY NEW YEAR!!

Look Out, here comes the Super Team.  The last thing we did in 2014 was to create some classroom goals for ourselves.  To make it a little more fun and interesting, we created a Happy New Year hat to go along with it.   The Superheroes did a great job thinking about what it is they want to work on in the new year.  I can not wait to see what happens next.  See you all in 2015!!!

Student Led Conferences

Thanks everyone for stopping by for student led conferences.  It is such an important part of our Primary Years Programme.  The students love sharing all they have learned and are so proud of the goals they have set for themselves. 

Hour of Code

Hour of Code was a time set aside for the students to work on computer programming.  I divided the students into twos and got each pair a laptop.  We then spent a WHOLE hour computer programming.  It was very exciting.   I think it is something we will look at again.

No Field Day!!!

That's okay, The Superheroes found something amazing to do.   We had our fifth grade buddies come and visit with us.  I created a few groups and each group had to choose a holiday book. (It could be from any culture!).  Then the first graders and fifth graders had to act out the story.

  It was a lot of fun to watch all the students working together. 

Pajama Day

All kinds of crazy things can happen on Pajama Party Day!  Who know that the kids would love Elvis singing, Blue Christmas!!

A Riddle

The Superheroes received a riddle from Sinterklaas and it led us to the garden!

FIELD DAY!!!

We were working hard on our banner!!  We are ready for Field Day.

  Now we have to wait until 2015!

SinterKlaas Came to Visit...

December 5th was a very special day for The Superheroes.  First, my lovely nieces came to visit.  The happen to know a lot about the Dutch culture (and I think they both want to be teachers!).  First, we explored the Dutch holiday through stories and books.  The book happened to be written in Dutch,  but that didn't stop us because we know how to tell stories using pictures.  Next, we made a model of a wooden shoe (called Klompen) like the Dutch children do.   To our surprise... after lunch it looked like Sinterklaas himself had visited us.  The door was locked and the window was opened and all the wooden shoes had the hay and carrots removed.  And special treats were left behind.  In my wooden shoes there was a letter from Sinterklaas that contained a riddle.  The students had to solve the riddle to figure out where the gift for the class was.  Well, they figured it out in no time and we headed to our pumpkin patch where we discovered a huge package.  

See previous post to see what we found when we opened the package!

Sinterklaas Dag

SinterKlaas Dag on PhotoPeach

Book Fair

Thank you Thank you Thank you to my amazing parents.   You were so generous and I added all these wonderful books to our classroom library!

The Menil

The Menil on PhotoPeach

Literacy Stations

The Superheroes continued to work on literacy through stations for certain parts of the day.  They work with a partner on a specific aspect of reading such as retelling a story or reading with fluency.  I think it's our favorite time of the day.

Writer's Workshop

We continue to explore the writing cycle during Writer's Workshop.  The students have learned to revise, edit and publish their writing.  

Scoot??

Today the Superheroes had a special visitor:  Mrs. Patin.  She wanted to watch and learn how they work during math time.  We played a game called Scoot.  Each desk has a math problem on it and you must solve it before I say "scoot" which means you have to move to the next problem!  It was a fun way to solve comparison problems using the symbols <,> or = . 

Storybook Parade

What a perfect day for a parade!  Everyone looks so excited.  I love that some friends had the same book.  We all LOVE to read!

Pumpkins Galore!

Finally,  after all our investigations we got to open up the pumpkins!  To our surprise a pumpkin does have air it.  Maybe that's why they floated??

Pumpkin Stations

Thank you to my parents for supplying all these pumpkins!  The Superheroes had a great time exploring, investigating and discovering facts, life cycles and measurement-All using PUMPKINS!!

Sink or Float

The Superheroes ventured out to the garden on this beautiful day to find out once and for all:  Will a pumpkin sink or float?

Dramatization of a Picture Book

Here is an example of dramatizing a story.  In this example, I am reading a picture book called, Mr. Gumpy's Outing.   We are learning the sequencing of a story and developing an understanding of plot and at the same time --having a wonderful time!

Independent Reading Time

This is what it sounds like in our classroom when the Superheroes are reading.  The Superheroes are becoming experts at choosing books that are just right!