Tuesday, June 9, 2009

Today was Book Character Day. When we came in this morning, we discovered that we had a substitute in our classroom, which said Room 207. It was Miss Viola Swamp, from the book Miss Nelson is Missing. Gianluca thought she was very mean when she said, “You don’t have recess for a month!” Anthony thought she was really strict and mean. Carly thought she was more strict than Ms. Stern. Rebecca was kind of scared when she saw her. Miss Swamp had a black dress on. She had black moles on her face and blue-green eye shadow on her eyes. Her lips were black and her hair was puffy on each side. After morning meeting, Miss Swamp had the book characters introduce themselves. Kevin wore a squid shirt and brought in I’m the Best Artist in the Ocean. Kaitlyn was dressed as the Littlest Princess. Carly was Diana White, a ballerina in the book Ballerina Dreams. Sean was Scooby Doo. Sammy was the cowboy from The Adventures of the Brave Cowboy. Zoe was a cheerleader from High School Musical 3. Anthony was dressed as Big Anthony. Sophia dressed up as Daphne Grimm from The Sisters Grimm. Nolan was Jack Sparrow from Pirates of the Caribbean.

Since we didn’t do our 100 facts yesterday, we did them today instead. Ms. Stern was hoping that more children would have improved their scores. So far, of the papers that got corrected, only two children beat their best scores. Next week, we are all going to try to do our best and stay focused to do our personal bests! We also continued to talk about money. We learned about the penny today. Carly learned that Abraham Lincoln is on the head. Bartosz learned that a penny is worth one cent. Joshua discovered that it says In God We Trust on the head. Sammy wanted to know how many pennies it would take to equal $1,000. We figured out that it would take 100,000 pennies to equal $1,000.

We had Writer’s Workshop before lunch today since Mrs. Barsanti had to go to a meeting this afternoon. Everyone continued to work on their non-fiction books. People continued to write, draw, search for features, and create glossaries for their books.

At gym, we played catch with our partners. We used different shaped balls. Then we played Star Wars. Isabella was a Jedi because she didn’t have a partner. Jedis can tag people who were out. Children who didn’t get to play because they didn’t have sneakers were the sweepers and the people who put the dots out.

We read 2 more chapters of the BFG, Journey to London and The Palace. The BFG and Sophie passed the nine giants coming back from finding their dinners. They traveled all the way to London from Giant Country. The BFG was able to blend into shadows so he wouldn’t be discovered. He and Sophie made it safely through Hyde Park Corner and arrived at the Queen’s palace, where the BFG left Sophie to rest on the window sill while the Queen had her dream.

During Reader’s Workshop, we only had time to read for 26 minutes. It was time to get ready to go home so we couldn’t read for as long as we normally do.

Tomorrow is Gum Day. Remember to bring in gum to chew in the classroom only. Gum may not be shared or be brought out of the room. We will have a bubble blowing contest in the afternoon.