Because of Winn Dixie

Does anyone have the Newbery Honor Book, Because of Winn Dixie? I would like this to be our next teacher read-aloud. I love this author and now is a great time to introduce Kate DiCamillo. She is going to be at Pershing Middle School next Sunday, October 18th at 2:30pm!! She will be giving a presentation promoting her new book, The Magician's Elephant and a book signing/sale will be held afterwards. UPDATE: The book has been found!

Art projects

The art projects look great! The kids were so excited to show off what art they have chosen. I loved how I saw all kinds of art. It was refreshing to see many children chose to draw/paint their representation of what they see when viewing their piece of art. Since we are still waiting for a few more pieces of art to come to school, we water colored our projects and are ready to share them with the class on Monday!

Booger Makes an A

Ahhh...finally! All 4 in a group can play Booger Makes an A all at the same time! Rumor has it 2 of my older computers will be replaced in the next week or so. Stay tuned...

here it is!

Problem solved. Here are the username and passcodes for our class Webkinz. Remember only 1 person can play with these at a time! Have fun!

turtles

I know someone that was quite proud to share something so amazing with the class and our science teacher, Mrs. Daniel!

gourds galore!

During reading groups rotations, the children had 2 days to observe the different properties of a collection of gourds. I think their favorite was using the balance to see how many blocks heavy they were!

shape hunt

The kids had a great time seachering for different shapes during our reading group rotation! They were pretty clever finding the properties of each shape in ordinary places. They also worked really well together as a team...

patterns

The kids did a GREAT job following a written plan to produce 5 different patterns with their templates, label them and then make up one of their own!

Before and After

I love this game! We play it with cards...minus the J's, Q's. K's and A's. I think I will have the kids teach this one to you at Student-Led Conferences next month! BTW, I am looking for 12 plastic soap containers to hold our cards in. Have you seen thses anywhere?

$80 and still counting

We got an early start this morning with counting pennies. Our penny collection tub was getting out of hand...and really heavy! Every spare moment we had helpers doing their share of counting.

Picasso's Blue and Rose Periods

Today we learned that Picasso had 2 of many distinct times in his life that he painted very happy pictures in red/pink tones and very sad pictures in blue tones. We were inspired to watercolor some "blue" and "rose" pictures that make us happy and sad.

Hand with Flowers

Today we read Picasso and the Girl With the Ponytail to learn about Picasso and some of his 40,000 pieces of art! We water colored flowers after previewing his famous painting, Hand With Flowers.

Art Homework

We’ve had a great start to our newest planner, “How We Express Ourselves.” The central idea is…through art, people express how they think and feel. Since we are reviewing the last 2 weeks of spelling rules I will not be sending home spelling homework, I thought it would be the perfect time for the children to go home and look around for art outside of school…and really think about how it makes them think and feel. You may actually visit an art museum on your own, look through art books at the library, go to a bookstore, or even go online to visit museums around the country (or even the world) to view art!

After choosing a favorite piece of art, I want each child to neatly fill out their “Looking at Art” sheet answering the following questions:

* Title of artwork
* Name of artist
* What colors do you see?
* What shapes do you see?
* What objects do you see?
* What do you like about the artwork…why did you choose it?
* I also want you to include a photo, picture, copy, or drawing of your piece of artwork

We will be sharing these in class Friday, October 9th. Your child should able to easily answer the above questions about their chosen piece of artwork.

Again, our homework load this week will be light (math only) to accommodate enough time to do a nice job on this project. I look forward to hearing about what kind of art your children choose to share. Have fun!

watercolored names

For obvious reasons, I did not display the children's work for the world to see...so here's mine! The children's names are much more creative...each had a different way of showcasing their own unique blend of colors and shapes. What better way to practice our watercolor skills and make a pretty sign all at the same time!

subtraction stories

Today we wrote our own subtraction stories. Our knowledge of sentences really helped us! Our stories started with 2 sentences that tell (how much we started with and how many are taken away) and ended with a sentence that asks (how many are left). I also asked for the correlating number sentence that included their unit (what they are counting). They did a FABULOUS job!

phonics warning

While some of our classmates are in Mrs. Norris' class on Mondays...the rest of the class will be receiving a HEAVY dose of phonics! Of course, I will make it fun!

High Roller

Always a new game...gotta keep them actively participating. Today we played, High Roller. I can see such a difference in their ability to add numbers at a quicker pace already!

congratulations!!!

We have a winner! This drawing brings to life this year's theme, The Story of Twainland, and best depicts Mark Twain children in a friendly neighborhood setting that they all treasure, our Twain Spider. Even more amazing is that this artwork is a collaborated effort of our classmate and a 5th grade friend! In addition to winning the cover contest, both will receive a free yearbook. Be sure to get your orders in! Way to go, SH!!!!!

new friends

Meet Green Bean, Brownie, Oreo and Cheeto. Thank you for the contributions! I will send their usernames/passwords home soon so that you can play with them at home, too. My favorite math game, "Booger Makes an A" can be found in the arcade at the Webkinz website! (Be aware that only one person can play with each animal at a time).

Booger Makes an A

Last week I introduced a new game that can be played in class, Booger Makes an A. It is found on Webkinz in the arcade section. This game is SO helpful with learning addition facts, problem solving and fact families. I love this game...and so did the kids!

Here's a quick lesson (the kids can probably show you!) on how to play...try it at home. Really. Booger is thinking of a number and it will appear in a bubble above his head. There are rows of numbers in the boxes to the left of him. All you simply need to do is click on the numbered boxes that add up to the number he is thinking of. Any correct combination works. It’s simple! BUT…and there’s always a ‘but’… as Booger is thinking more tiles appear across the top and eventually they will fall down, adding more tiles on the bottom that you can choose from. This means that the rows of tiles start layering on top of each other. Don’t let the tiles hit the top or the game is over. As you play along stickers will appear throughout the tiles. Try and use these stickers as they all have a purpose. The ‘time-out’ sticker pauses the game, the ‘eraser’ sticker clears a row of blocks, and the ‘goal’ sticker removes sums that you need to do.

*** The Webkinz account we are using is from last year and I am sure it will expire soon. Would anyone like to donate a new class Webkinz (I would love to have 4)?

Mixing Colors

Today we mixed primary colors together to make secondary colors. It seemed like magic to them!

Henri Matisse

Today we had our first official Art a la Carte lesson. Thank you to Mrs. Wang and Mrs. Dong for presenting such a fun and exciting lesson on Henri Matisse. The kids especially enjoyed experimenting with their own positive and negative creations! We read all bout Matisse and the children were fascinated with the fact he didn't discover art until he was 20 years old in law school when someone gave him a box of watercolors!

reading

Nice to have almost a full week of reading groups!

Peace Update

Last week on International Day of Peace we participated in the Global Art Project Exchange, Let's All join Hands, by tracing our own hands and wrote our wishes for the world on them. This is an ongoing project, and to date, they have received thousands of submissions. Our class was no different. In their spare time this week they did what they could and today we counted 79 hands to contribute towards the cause! When you participate, your hand is joined with others, creating a tangible representation of the people around the world who join their energy together to create a peaceful future. I will send our contribution when we hit 100!

Global Art Project for Peace Exhibition at the Tucson Museum of Art

spanish

Having fun while learning our color words in Spanish!

complementary colors

Today we talked about complimentary colors (colors opposite one another on the color wheel) and made some beautiful artwork at the same time!

breaking news...

I'm sure you heard the news...we finally finished The Trumpet of the Swan and watched the movie yesterday. The kids loved it! Be sure to ask your child how the movie was different from the book.

Just a squiggle...

I see a snail, apple tree, octopus, apple, tornado, flower, clown, hermit crab and a sun! It's neat to see how differently they each saw a squiggle...

Mondrian

In art ancillary the children learned about Piet Mondrian. They explored straight lines, primary colors, rectangles, squares and grids.

color wheel

Today we made our own color wheels to help us learn the difference between primary and secondary colors.

jars needed

Is there a baby in your house that eats baby food from a jar? If so, we could use 2 more jars to complete our class set! We use them for painting in class and don’t quite have enough!

Matthew's Dream

Today we read Matthew's Dream by Leo Lionni. After being inspired by Matthew's Dream, we listened to classical music and painted our own "dreams." When I get a chance...I will display them in the hallway.

watercolors!

Today we broke out the watercolors for the first time! We will be using these often and it is important to get the rules covered so that we can keep them looking great all year long! When we are done with them, they have a "sleepover" at the writing table to dry overnight so they don't get mixed together and all turn brown!

balancing act

During reading groups, one of the "jobs" assigned was to weigh various things from our classroom using our pennies as a unit of measure! We had fun using the balance to see how many pennies equals a pair of scissors, marker, glue stick, etc.

reading groups

We finally got back to our reading groups today! With LDC the past 2 weeks and TPRI testing looming over our shoulders...it was nice to get back into the swing of things!

Penny Grab

Today we played a new game, Penny Grab. Basically, the game was a fun way to add pennies together and to reinforce the idea that one penny equals one cent. Later this week, we will play Penny and Nickel Grab...same idea but with nickels added to the mix!

penny investigation

Can you believe our official Everyday Math lesson today was on pennies? What luck...we have thousands of them at our disposal! We took a few minutes to take a closer look at them using our own very own loupes. We discovered a lot of neat characteristics of a penny. Have you seen the new penny design? Very cool!

Millionaire Club

Apparently, we have quite a few millionaires in our class this year! I'm so happy to see so many of you were so rich with books over the summer. Thanks for taking the time to turn in your reading lists. Well done!

Fun with Pennies!!!

Who knew counting pennies could be so much fun! The kids took turns counting the pennies into groups of 100 to make $1. By the end of each week, I imagine everyone will have a chance to count pennies! We decided the bags could hold $10 without breaking.

We found out what 100 pennies looks like...

they didn't quite believe it was a dollar!

We found out 20 nickels equal a dollar.

We found out 10 dimes equal a dollar.

We found out 4 quarters equal a dollar.

We even found a golden Sacagawea dollar coin!

By the end of today's lesson we counted 3 groups of 10...AKA $30!!! Not too shabby 1st graders...job well done. We still have MANY more pennies to count!