Halloween!

Happy Halloween everyone!

Grant, Nathan, Caleb and Cadasia

Keagan, Jayden, Drew and Abby

Evan, Spencer, Devin and Mariela

Ava, Blake, Jacob and Madelynn

Vanessa L., Taylor, Sean and Carter

Chan, Danielle, Katelynn and Vanessa S.

The whole gang!

Enjoying amazing goodies!

Having fun with our friends.

Checking out the goodie bags!

A great day with great friends!

Playing Halloween BINGO!

Checking game boards!

A special thanks to all the parents who donated and brought in amazing goodies for our party.  All the parents and grandparents that came to watch, cheer and help at the party were greatly appreciated! 

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We Wondered...

Mrs. Koehn brought in a few pumpkins to decorate our room for the party.  We started to realize that we had a lot of things we wondered about pumpkins!  Caleb suggested we make a chart, so we used the KWL chart to see what we already knew, what we wanted to learn and what we learned at the end!

To find information, we used a book about pumpkins.  It helped us to learn the answers to a lot of our questions, but we still wondered about how many seeds were inside.  We decided we should find out!

Mrs. Koehn cut the tops off and we did the rest!

We pulled out the seeds (and the pulp)...

...and pulled out seeds and pulp...

...and we each helped to count the seeds!

Some groups counted one by one...

...some groups made stacks.

Most everybody got in on the action!

Some didn't mind getting their hands gooey...

...others preferred to just deal with the seeds. 

It took a lot of patience to count all those seeds!

In the end, we figured out that we had 478 seeds in one pumpkin, 500 in another, 400 in one and 820 in the last one!  We worked together to figure out how we could add up such big numbers.  We even had to learn what the THOUSDANDS place was!!  (That's a lot of seeds!)

In the end, we realized that we had really learned a lot about pumpkins.  But we still have things we wondered!  While we were out of time at school, we know that we can keep learning anywhere!  We can't wait to find out where pumpkins originated from and how come some are red, some are orange and some are even white!

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Fire Safety

Today, a few of the members of the Paw Paw Fire Department came to school to talk with us about fire safety. 

The Chief talked with us about when to call 911 (and when not to); what to do if our clothes catch on fire (Stop! Drop! and Roll!) and how important it is to have an escape plan at home!

We also got to see and hear what a fireman would look and sound like if he came in our house to save us.  We know not to be afraid, even if he does sound like Darth Vadar!

We even got to meet Freddy!  He taught us a lot about fire safety, too!

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First to 100!

Grant is the first student to get all 100 addition facts correct in 5 minutes!  He earned his choice of candy (Skittles, of course!) and a moment to celebrate his accomplishment.  Way to work toward your goal, Grant!

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Quick and Easy Activities for Home

Looking for more ideas of what you can do at home?  Try these!

Reading: Ask questions!  Whatever your child is reading, ask questions.  Compare a character in this book to the last book your child read.  How is Marty like Horrible Harry?  How are they different?  What is the setting of this book?  Is that the same setting or different from Charlotte's Web?  How would you react if that happened to you?  Helping your child to think about the text, the characters and connecting a current book to life experiences, a movie, or another book really helps them to understand it on a deeper level.

Math:  We have been working on adding and subtracting using metric measurements (meters and centimeters).  Spend just a minute or two estimating lengths, or adding them.  Even comparing one length to another helps your student develop subtraction fluency!

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We have been learning about prepositions and how they can really add interesting details to our writing.  We used a mentor text, "Leaf Man" by Lois Ehlert which is full of great prepositions to help broaden our understanding of these words.  We created our own sentences using prepositions and then created our own Leaf Man to demonstrate our writing!

"Leaf Man is in the air and on the hill and glideing in the sky." by Madelynn

"Leaf Man flew through the leaves and under the birds." by Grant

"A Leaf man is flying through the sky with the birds." by Devin

"Leaf Man is going under the brige." by Mariela

"Leaf Man is in the middle fo the cave." by Carter

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Winners!

Today we were visited by Mrs. Newell, on behalf of the PTO.  All of our prowl participants who brought in pledge money are being recognized today at a special assembly.  Mrs. Newell stopped by our classroom to congratulate everyone and to share some special prizes with our top earners! 

Jayden, Nathan, Grant, Keagan and Ava all get to have a special ride on a FIRE TRUCK!!

Jayden, Keagan and Ava also get to have lunch with Mr. Turner on Monday!
 (I hear he is ordering  pizza!)

Then we found out that Ava is the GRAND PRIZE WINNER for the WHOLE SCHOOL!!!

Ava earned movie tickets, popcorn and snacks AND a family pass to the KWings!

Thanks to ALL of our prowl participants and especially all those people who pledged money!  The money helps support so many amazing things at our school (like the free books we got!)

Thanks, PTO for all your hard work!! 

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Synergizing!!

I sometimes wonder if other professions have the amazing moments that teaching holds.  Today during math, I challenged the students to read a particular math problem carefully (I'm always reminding them that good mathematicians are very careful readers!) and then to work with tenacity (a word we are learning about.  We call it "stick-to-it-ness"!) to solve it.  The problem looked like this:

I gave the students time and I wandered around and watched and listened as they worked through the problem.  After several minutes, I could tell they were still struggling.  Since our habit of the week is "Synergizing", I suggested to the students that maybe if they worked together and synergized they might have more success.  They readily agreed and grabbed a partner and got back to thinking and working.

Blake and Vanessa Ann got busy talking and re-reading the problem.

Drew and Nathan talked about possible solutions.  

Evan and Keagan tried teamwork to solve.

Carter and Caleb discussed the parts that got them stuck.

Mariela and Katelyn talked about strategies.

Ava and Judah re-read the problem.

Abby and Cadasia tried working it through again.

After several more minutes, I could feel the energy in the room rising as students' excitement grew over the problem, but no solutions were forthcoming.  I again, suggested synergizing.  I reminded students that working together sometimes means partners and sometimes means bigger groups.  They readily joined forces with other pairs and made larger groups.

 

There were some great discussions about what strategy would work best to solve.

Students worked together to try the new ideas. 

Finally a team produced the correct answer!  

Caleb, Carter, Blake and Vanessa Ann all worked well together and figured out the correct solution.  We put the problem up on the board and the four took turns to explain the strategies they used to solve the problem. 

Math might have taken a lot of extra time today but the students learned so many life skills I just couldn't stop them!  Besides, when kids get this excited about learning, I get really excited about being a teacher!

Kudos to all the BUGS!  Way to synergize!!

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Are You Ready?!

Are you ready for November 13th?  The BUGS are working very hard on their writing!  

Our first Sharing Day, "Authors are Artists (with words!)" will be held on Friday, November 13th in Room 18.  We invite all parents, grandparents, guardians, awesome neighbors and cool relatives to come see what we've been working on!

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