Friday, March 28, 2008

Today we had a bunch of visitors. First, Mrs. Caverzasi’s class joined us. They came in to learn more about the mealworms. We showed them photographs of a mealworm shedding as well as a video of the mealworm as it came out of its old skin.

They also helped us by teaching us some scientific words for the things we’ve been noticing while we have been observing the mealworms. The students taught us words like pupa, molting, and frass. A pupa is what they turn into so that they can change. Molting is when they shed their skin and frass is the scientific name for the poop. The frass is different colors because of the food that the mealworms eat. The orange parts show that they have eaten the carrots.
Mrs. Yelin’s class also stopped by later in the day to watch a DVD of one of the students who swam with dolphins. It was really really neat to watch.

In art, we finished our fashion design pictures. Everyone drew a different outfit. When we finished, we got to do free drawing. The girls had to draw a picture of a boy and the boys had to draw a picture of a girl. We didn’t want to…but we did it anyway!

We continued practicing fact families again. Fact families are 3 numbers that can be combined to make 2 addition sentences and 2 subtraction sentences. We also played another game of Pig. Ms. Stern was in the lead for most of the game but then the class took over. Finally, with 98 points on their side, the class was sent back to 0 after 2 ones were rolled! In the end, Ms. Stern won (again) 107-83.

Have a great weekend!

Wednesday, March 26, 2008

Today is Justin’s birthday. He turned 7. His dad brought in an ice cream cake to have during snack. It was incredible! Lots of children even licked their plates clean! Justin chose Jackie to help him pass out the birthday treats. That was funny because we just celebrated Jackie’s birthday in school. Some children wanted to clean their plates to keep.

During word study, we tried different vowel combinations to spell words. First, we looked at a picture. Next, we spelled the words with “o_e” and then “oa.” Finally, we circled the one that looked correct to us. Ms. Stern wants us to try that strategy when we are writing and we aren’t sure how to spell a word.

We learned that related facts for addition and subtraction are called fact families. With 3 numbers, we can make 4 problems. Here is an example: with the numbers: 9, 6, and 3 we can make the following addition and subtraction sentences: 3+6=9 and 6+3=9; 9-6=3 and 9-3=6

In art, Miss Laura had us look at designs and patterns on clothing. She is in college to learn how to be a fashion designer. We are going to be thinking of our own funky fashions to put on our self-portraits instead of plain ones. Then we are going to have a fashion show to show off our work. We didn’t work because we had to listen to find out about the different designs that we’re going to do.

During morning meeting we discussed the change in seasons and temperature. It is beginning to get warmer. This morning’s temperature was warmer than yesterday’s afternoon temperature. We are glad that spring is finally here!

St. Patrick's Day: Monday, March 17, 2008

Today is St. Patrick’s Day. We think we found some leprechaun clues. There was green glitter dust in our room. There was a trail starting at the door and leading to some of the tables. It appeared after we arrived in the room this morning. Also, we noticed the background on the Smartboard slides had been turned green with dancing leprechauns on them. Ms. Stern told us that she makes the slides on Friday afternoons and they were all white when she left last week. Mikey thinks he saw a leprechaun running across the floor and it moved really fast. Kelsey and Aidan noticed green things on the walls. Lots of children were wearing green today.

We took our 100 facts again today. Aidan and Cassie graduated to the subtraction club. Lots of people had their personal best scores again this week!

Today was Jackie’s pretend birthday. She was absent on her real birthday in February. She got really sick then. We ate chocolate and vanilla cupcakes to celebrate.

In P.E., we did three things. First, we did squad jogging. Next, we did rock climbing, scooters, and finally we did gymnastics.

Only one person got to share during talking stick. Everyone else either didn’t get their journals done or people weren’t looking over their work carefully and had careless mistakes (like not using punctuation, capitalization, or fixing spelling and word wall words). Hopefully everyone will be able to participate next week.

Our only homework this week is to teach our families how to play Pig. The children in Mrs. Caverzasi’s class taught us how to play last week. Tomorrow is our last day of school for the week. Anyone who is interested in taking Jimmy home should let Ms. Stern know, ASAP. First come, first serve!

Monday, March 10, 2008

This morning we started our day writing in our journals just like we do every week. A few children wrote about going to the St. Patrick’s Day parade in Pearl River. A lot of people didn’t finish their journals before lunch so they had to finish their work during talking stick. The children who got to share also got to choose something from the candy jar because they used their time wisely and completed their responsibilities.

Ms. Stern raffled off a new Highlights magazine and some stickers. The children had to choose a number between 1 and 12. Madison B. and Lily both guessed correctly.

We had our spelling pre-test. Our spelling words have long e sounds spelled “ie.” Most people thought they were easy but they were actually harder than we originally thought. That just means that we’re going to have to practice a lot and work hard to learn the words. Ms. Stern told us to try out different ways to spell a word and see which one looks right. We tried this with the word “beef.”

Today was our second time taking the 100 facts. Madison B. graduated to subtraction. Casey and Joel made BIG improvements. Overall, most children in the class improved their scores from last week. Next week, we’re going to do even better!

In Music, we are learning about music notes. So far, we have learned about tas and tee-tees. A ta is longer than a tee-tee. Mrs. Fox has someone come pick a card with a number 1-6 on it. The number tells which “castle” someone is going to build. Mrs. Fox has information written on the whiteboard. We work in groups to make the buildings she has written on the board, using the different notes that are written on the sides of the boxes.