Skyping with New Friends

Today was a very special day in rm 105. We had our first Skype session of the year. Today we met new friends from British Columbia, Canada! It was so fun! They wished us a good morning, as we said good afternoon. They are 4 hours behind us here in Ohio.

Here are a few facts we learned about our new friends...

1. They have "toboggan days" three days a week instead of recess.

2. They have snow November through March!

3. They do not have snow days.

4. In the summer it does get warm enough to swim in the lake.

5. They sing O Canada every morning.

Hopefully we will get to talk to our Canadian friends again soon. Tomorrow we get to Skype with children in Alaska!

 

(Sorry the photo is so bad. I was trying to take a photo and focus on the skype at the same time.)

Happy December!

So I've been a little MIA! I cannot believe it is DECEMBER! Where did November go? Well, we had a wonderful month full of special activities and projects. We spent most of the month learning about The First Thanksgiving. However, we also did a lot with Veterans' Day. Here are my favorite photos of the month.

 Our Veterans' Day Assembly

 Our adorable soldiers that welcomed the Veterans in the Lobby.

 

Making our Mayflower Books.

Sequencing the events of the First Thanksgiving.

Watching a video on the Wamponoag Indians during Computer Lab.

We made butter!

Thanksgiving facts on the SMARTboard.

 

Pilgrim Day!

 

Who Will Carve the Turkey? Class book

Our Turkeys! SO much fun!

I just LOVED the timelines! Each student shared last week and they are now displayed in the hallway.

Those are just a few highlights. November was such a great month and we have already started several holiday activities. I will blog about our week on Friday, but here is preview of what's happening in Room 105...

 

Happy Halloween

We had a very exciting day! In computer lab, students drew themselves in their Halloween costumes, using the program Pixie. We also had Book Fair and Guests for Lunch. Thanks to all that came out. We finished the day by reading Skeleton's Hiccups and completing a related activity. Here are a few photos from our day.

We started the day with the E.T. greeting.

          

Hope you had a fang-tactic Halloween!

Harvest Stations

What a fun day! After taking our word wall assessment, we jumped into some pumpkin activities. We started with Math. We went over the quilts we created on Thursday and examined the patterns. Then students created another quilt for our class quilt. Each student had to create a jack-o-lantern using pattern blocks. We reviewed the names of the pattern blocks and how they could go together. Here are a few results...

I am creating our class quilt and will post the finished product. It already looks great! After the students created their jack-o-lantern quilt, they had to graph the pattern blocks used. The idea and worksheet came from my teacher friend Michelle.

We did work on the life-cycle of the pumpkin, but I forgot to take photos of their work.

After special we had our Harvest Celebration. Thank you to all the families who volunteered their time or donated an item for this special event. The kids had SO much fun!

We taste tested apples and graphed our favorite.

We labeled the parts of an apple.

(We had a little helper at that station.)

 

We compared the weight of a mini pumpkin to the weight of an apple.

We made a very cute pumpkin craft.

Thanks again to all the volunteers. Next week, we will continue our Harvest unit with the study of apples.

Diwali

On Thursday, we had a very special treat. One of our students taught us about Diwali. We learned that it is called the "Festival of Lights." We also learned about the symbols of Diwali.

Sharing Pattern Books

Today we completed our Pattern Unit in Writing Workshop. The students chose one book to keep in the writing portfolio. We enjoyed sharing our books with friends. This opportunity not only allowed students to share their book, but also gave students practice on partner reading and helped build community.

I modeled how the student is to listen to their partner. We also gave each other compliments. After the sharing, we met together and discussed the compliments. Students noticed that others used punctuation. Others were impressed with the pattern in the book. Detailed illustrations was another compliment.

Here are a few other things we did this week...

We worked with short i.

We used the iPad during Guided Reading!

We worked on Quilt Squares.