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!