Birds or Squirrels?

Our bread valentines for the birds were a hit! Only red yarn strings are left dangling from the tree. The class wonders if the birds were able to get to them before the squirrels...

(pictures to come)

Our week in review:

*We wrote our Moon books chapter by chapter.

*We solved a month mystery. It was March!

*I'm playing on ZASP's basketball league. I finally learned how to dribble. I'm excited for next week's game!

*I learned how to make an eclipse of the Moon.

*The Sun spins.

*I liked when we were trying to figure out what month the poem was talking about. It said it can't be July, December, September or October. It was March because it had two seasons and is windy.

*I liked the book The Rough Face Girl.

*I liked the game in PE we played with catchers and throwers.

*I liked finding what month the poem described.

*I liked when we played the game Alibi.

*Basketball addition was fun!

*Math games can be fun. When we don't do it right, it gets kind of boring.

*We made snowflakes in art.

*The Earth goes around the Sun and the Moon goes around the Earth. That's revolving.

*The Moon is Earth's closest neighbor.

A Valentine Mystery

Mrs. G: How did you find your valentine? Why did you search for it during reading time?

Student Answers:

1. We're practicing inferring. We needed to use inferring to help us figure out clues that led to it.
2. We got clues to get our valentine. We had to read the clues and find the next clue.
3. I followed all of the clues and the last clue was, "I have legs but cannot walk." So I looked on my chair.
4. I found it with my group. We solved problems like "You can see through me but can't go
through me." First we thought a mirror, but thought you can see your relfection not through it. SOO we thought it was the window.
5. I used the clues that I had and thought about what things were in the classroom that had to to with the clue.
6. Clue six said it had four legs, so it was the chair.
7. We had to use our reading strategies. It told me it had four legs. Then I realized four legs would have to be a chair. I looked and found it.
8. There were cards. I got one and it lead to the next one. The final one led to where it was.
9. We were detectives.
10. With the clues...
11. I followed the clues.
12. Well I found a clue at my seat and I thought. The clue led me to the Refill Station. I found another clue there that brought me to the Literacy Bins. Then my next clue brought me to the mailboxes. Then it brought me to my seat. I checked under my seat and found your valentine.
13. First our group read your clues and then we thought what part of the room would the clues go with. Then once we found where the clues were, we just tried it. If it didn't work we would just think what else would be a good place that the clues would match.
14. By trying to figure out the clues and looking in different places.
15. We had to use our classroom schema folder.
16. We were following all the clues. I was writing it down. We were reading them. When we got to the last one, we found out what was four legs.
17. Followed clues.

Special Valentines

During reading students have been practicing inferring. They've learned that the reader must use the author's clues as well as background knowledge to understand text. One poem we read described valentines created for special friends (birds). The students used reading strategies to figure out who the valentines were made for and then to create these valentines.

10, 9, 8, 7, 6, 5, 4, 3, 2, 1...Blast off!

At the beginning of our Earth, Sun, and Moon unit, students created a view of the Sun and Earth from the Moon. The group that created the Sun used torn construction paper and glued the pieces together to create the fiery illustration. The Moon group used white poster board, markers, and careful cutting to create the moonscape. The Earth group creatively traced our Noise-O-Meter hemisphere (two times) and added splashes of green land. The background group used white chalk on black paper to illustrate the many other objects in space. Astronauts were drawn and cut out by our final group. This group wanted larger figures placed closer up in order to show depth!
The students (and their teachers) are very proud of the outcome of this cooperative project!

Fact Collecting

Here are few more pictures of facts collected during our solar system unit.

February 5, 2010: The beginning...

A colleague turned me on to the idea of communicating classroom activities through a blog. It got me thinking that it would be great for the children to post their ideas about learning experiences. So here is our week in review:
I became a master at Trade-First Subtraction. It's so easy now!
The sun shines on different parts of the moon.
I liked the mad minute!

We are detectives when we read.

Look for more posts with student work.