Walking in a Winter Wonderland

Well I wish we would have had more snow than ice, but it is still January. Who wants to bet we will have a snow day in March, when we are all ready for rainbows and warmer temps?  Anyway, this Polar Bear is enjoying a winter wonderland in his home in Toledo. Check this out!

Pocket Zoo is a $1.99 app, but they do have a free version, Free! I was so excited when I stumbled upon the app last week. You can click on any animal, see photos, hear the sound the animal makes, and check out LIVE web cams from around the world. How cool is that?!

So on Thursday we hooked the iPad up to the SMARTboard and clicked on the Polar Bear. There are two zoos hooked up for the Polar Bear. The Canadian Zoo had a lot of snow, so we figured we would not see a Polar Bear. I turned on the Toledo live cam. I told the students not to get too excited because I had yet to see the Polar Bear when I was exploring the app. So I began my lesson and all of the sudden the kids begin to shout..."there he is!" I think it was the highlight of our week. We took a screenshot so all of you could see him too. Here is a photo of the lesson.

I cannot wait to use this app when teaching Penguins next week. Can you tell I'm a little excited about this app?
Students are learning much about the polar bear. They were fascinated to learn that the skin of a polar bear is actually black. To help us remember this, students traced a polar bear on black construction paper and colored the polar bear with chalk. We will continue our study on Tuesday.

So earlier in the week, we celebrated Martin Luther King Jr. The students really enjoyed watching Martin's Big Words on Scholastic BookFlix. I must say, I was moved to tears myself. They played parts of MLK Jr.'s "I have a dream speech."

We also read a biography online about MLK Jr.

We began a new unit in Math.  All about measurement. We learned how to correctly measure the length of an object using nonstandard units.

I'm off to get ready for the exciting week ahead. Chinese New Year, Polar Bears, and Penguins...Oh, My!