Garden Clean-up!

What a class of hard workers! As we were heading out to recess this morning, I looked out of the window at our sad looking garden. I made an announcement on a whim to invite kids to meet me at the garden if they would like to be part of "Garden Club" at recess!! We cleaned up the garden and it is looking so much better. They were super excited to be part of the club and we even cleaned up trash on the playground! I think I may try this idea of clubs at home with Lydia and Annabelle...I'm thinking "sock matching club" and "window washing club"! HA!

Luau Fun!

Dancing in the hallway! 

Bald Eagles

We have been watching some Bald Eagles on a webcam from Decorah, Iowa. The kids have been very interested in this. Because of this, I decided we needed to weave this in with our All About...unit in writer's workshop. All week we have been working on thinking of facts about the Bald Eagles that we have been learning about. The kids have done an amazing job coming up with facts. We created our own "All About Bald Eagles" bulletin board so others can learn about them too.

Each day we decided on what our fact would be and we wrote the facts together by first saying the sentence a few times, counting the number of words in the sentence, stretching the first word, and remembering that the first word in a sentence begins with a capital. We would then "read" (say) the sentence again and stretch out the next word, writing all the sounds. We repeated this process until the sentence was complete. Each child wrote their own words as we went using the Stage app on their iPads and we each took turns writing on the paper on the easel. It was a group effort in creating the sentences for the hallway but individually, their ability to stretch the words and notice the various sounds was impressive. They have learned so much this year....I am so proud of them!!

If you would like to follow the eagles from home the website is here: Decorah Eagles


Our facts are:

Eagles are raptors.
Baby eagles are called eaglets.
Eagles have good eyesight to spot their prey.
Eagles have sharp talons to hold their food.


With this activity we worked on or reviewed:
Sentence structure (capital letter, spaces, period)
Digraphs (th, sh, ch)
Endings (adding an "s" when you mean more then 1)
We touched on vowel pairs (When two vowels go a walkin' the first one does the talkin')
Noticing "snap" words in other words
Practiced using the "snap" words we "just know"

We also drew beautiful Bald Eagles and painted them!

Enjoy!

Teamwork Makes the Dreamwork!!!

Recess today was all about teamwork! 

Maple Syrup....yummm

Today we had the opportunity to have a guest, Mrs. Small, join our classroom to teach us about Maple Syrup. She had artifacts, photos, stories and even some maple syrup to taste. The kids throughly enjoyed tasting the maple syrup!! Thank you Mrs. Small!

Digraphs

This week we spent some time working with the digraphs th, sh, and ch. We are learning that when these letters are together, they make a new sound. We will continue to practice this so we can fluently use them and recognize them in our writing and reading.