Happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween! We apologize for missing the blog yesterday. We were so busy finishing up our centers that we forgot to fit it in. The most exciting part about yesterday was our visit to our second grade computer buddies. We used a typing game to learn to use the "home keys" on the keyboard. This game in on the internet. You can find it and use it at home by visiting Mrs. Myers' teacher page and clicking on the links page.

Today our word of the day was "which". It was a rule follower with lots of consonant digraph sounds. It has a homonyn -the word "witch". We practiced the -itch family on a witch's hat. Later in the morning, we finished our October calendar. Check my mail tonight to see what I thought was the best part of the month. After recess, we finished our math centers. We used the giant numberline to add. We used number stamps and pumpkin cards to show the commutative property. We used candy corn and candy corn math mats to add. Last, we used number beanbags to find the sums for different numbers. After lunch and recess, we read the story Shake dem Halloween Bones. It was a great story. It had a song in it, too. We listened to hear all the characters from other stories who were at the Halloween ball. We made great book - to - book connections. We had reading workshop and finished our centers. For Fun Friday, we had a Halloween crossword puzzle and a new story in the listening center. We also worked with a partner to spell words on the big wipe-off board. We also finished the art center. Our q-tip skeletons turned out great! We had fun! After centers, we had writing workshop time. We continued to write in our journals. Mrs. Myers conferenced with us about our "grab the reader" beginnings. They were so great! At the end of writing time, Mrs. Myers shared beginnings by Ian, Thomas, Macy G, Evan, Matthew, and Nicolas. They used questions, something important, onomatopoeia, and quotations to start their stories. YAY! To end our day, we earned a Halloween reward. We had a Halloween dance party as we listened to The Casper Slide. It was so fun. Check out the video and pictures! Happy Halloween to everyone! Have a great time trick-or-treating and be safe!

Almost Halloween

Today our word of the day was "an". It was a rule follower, but it had a funny accent on the "a". We read the words we already wrote on the "can of -an". We learned that the word "an" is just like the word "a", but we use it when the word that follows it in a sentence begins with a vowel. (ex. I will be an alligator for Halloween). After word of the day, we had math. For Halloween math, we used candy corn as the tool to measure the length of objects around our classroom. We discussed how we usually use a ruler, yardstick, or a tape measure to measure length. One candy corn was the same as one inch, so we could still measure in inches, but without a normal measurement tool. First, we worked with a partner to choose an object in the classroom that was less than 12 inches. Next, we drew our object on the recording sheet. Then, we estimated how many candy corns long our object would be. Last, we checked our estimate by measuring using the candy corn. We recorded our information on our recording sheet. It was fun. Let's try it out at home. After lunch and recess, Mr. Seibel came and read a story to our class. It was called, I Know an Old Lady Who Swallowed a Bat. After the story, we put the events in order using pictures. Then, Mrs. Myers helped us make a retelling bag with the old lady on the front. We retold the story using our props with a partner. I can't wait to retell the story to you tonight. Then it was time for reading workshop and guided reading. At the end of reading time, Madison gave us a book commercial about the book, Spooky Hour. Then, Grace, Elizabeth, Ian, and Ryan performed a reader's theater of the book, Sam's Seasons. We really liked the surprise "WOW" ending. Finally, it was center time. We visited our third center and got to do the first part of the art center. At writing workshop time, we didn't do regular writing today. Instead, we played a game to practice stretching our words. We listened for word family and word of the day words around the room. We also tried to use the sounds on the clothesline like - ar, -am, -oo, and the consonant digraphs sounds - sh, ch, wh, and th. It was a very busy day. We are learning so much! Today is the end of the first marking period. We are so surprised that the time is passing so quickly. Only two more days until Halloween - we can't wait!

A Few Tricks and Treats

Our word of the day today was "use". It was a rule breaker, because the "s" made the sound of "z". We liked the way "magic e" did his job to change "us" into "use". It was not a popular word family. Later in the morning, we went to Mrs. Lauber's class to hear the story, Halloween, by Gail Gibbons. It was a nonfiction story to teach us facts about the history and holiday of Halloween. Before we heard the story, we worked with a partner. We read a new vocabulary card and decided if the word would be in the story or not. During the story, we listened for our word. We stood when we heard it. All of the people who thought their vocabulary word would not be in the story were wrong. Mrs. Myers tricked us. Then, we wrote two new facts about Halloween and one opinion. After recess, Big Shark's Halloween Mystery. We retold the story using a GO map. We practiced telling the when, who, where of the story. We put a star on the problem event and a star on the solution event. Then, we had reading workshop and guided reading. Then, we had centertime. Mrs. Myers introduced our new art center. We are making a skeleton using q-tips for bones. We are so excited. At writing workshop time, we went to Mrs. Lauber's class. Mrs. Myers read us a story that she wrote. It didn't have an ending. We divided into eight groups and each group was assigned a kind of ending. We used a feelings ending, a question ending, a surprise ending, and a something important ending. At the end, we shared our endings and awarded beans to the best ending of each type. We will continue to practice using these new endings for a long time! We finished our day with phys. ed. and Junie B. Jones.

Halloween Week

Our theme this week is Halloween. Our word of the day today was "there". It was a rule breaker, because of the "ere" at the end. This word is a homonyn for the words "their" and the contraction "they're". In math today, we did candy corn estimation. There were 35 candy corn in the jar. Dawson had a perfect estimate. We had other close guesses, too. We had library, lunch, and recess. After recess, Mrs. Myers read the story, The Brave Witch. We listened for contractions in the story. We learned how to pull the contraction into two words and put it back together. A clue that a word is a contraction is to look for the apostrophe. We had reading workshop next and Mrs. Myers read with a group. Then, we had a special visitor. Mr. Carlisle, Abby's dad, came to visit our classroom. He is a dentist, and he came to remind us to brush our teeth twice a day, especially after we get Halloween candy! After our visit, we read the story, The Room on the Broom. We listed words on the -oom broom. We made brooms to read to you at home! Then, it was time for writing workshop. Mrs. Lauber's class joined us. We learned how to write a "WOW" ending. Ask me to show you the "WOW" signal at home tonight. We can end a story using a feelings ending, a surprise ending, telling something important, question, and or a fantasy ending. We will practice this all week! At the end of the day, we had new centers for Halloween. In the games center, we are adding hats and brooms to witches who have contraction shirts. The hat and the broom tell the two words that make the contraction. In the sentence strips centers, we are reading the book, Skeleton Hiccups. Then, we are finding the verbs from the story, circling the root word, and underlining the ending -ed. In the writing center, we are choosing a card from the character pile, the setting pile, and the verb pile. Then, we are making a story using these cards. The last center is the listening center. We are listening to the story, The Spookiest Halloween Ever. We are writing and drawing a text to self connection to the book. We will hear all about the art center tomorrow!

Fall Festival

Today was a fantastic fall festival day! We started the day with a Steven Courtney concert. He was great! Mrs. Myers has almost all of his CD's so we will be listening to him in our classroom, too. If you want to hear his music, his website is in Mrs. Myers links page in the school website. Mrs. Myers' daughter, Madeline and her mom came for the show. We were excited to meet them. After the concert, we went to music class, lunch, and recess. Then, we met with Mrs. Lauber's class to hear the story, The Biggest Pumpkin Ever. It was a really neat story. The events in the story were the same for each character. It was called parallel events. In the middle of the story, the two characters meet and the events come together. After the story, we worked in three groups to sequence each character's events. Then, we retold the story together using our teams. Then, it was time for writing workshop. We stayed with Mrs. Lauber's class and finished our "build-a-story" scarecrow project. Each student wrote an event to the whole story. We are hanging it in the hallway for everyone to see. We also made a book for our classroom library. It is quite a scarecrow adventure for Bob! After that, we had our fun Friday time. A few of us had to finish our centers. The rest of us made a pumpkin on a vine to show the steps of how a pumpkin grows. We will finish our projects on Monday. After recess, we had our fall festival party. Mrs. Rishel, Mrs. Donnor, Mrs. Pressley, Mrs. Bashada, Mrs. Elder, and Mrs. Yancanich threw a great party for us. We made a ghost craft that was really spooky. We heard the story, Pumpkin Soup. We ate some yummy food in the dark and listened to Halloween music. Last, we played fall BINGO. We all won stickers!! It was the best party ever. We also wanted to thank all the parents who donated foods for our party and to Mrs. Bowman for planning the party, even though she wasn't here today. YEAH! FALL!

MOST IMPORTANTLY - Have a great weekend and GO PENN STATE!!!

A Very Busy Day!

We started our day a little mixed up! First, we went to our second grade buddies and did our writing time on the computer. We practiced opening a word document, wrote one fact and one opinion about pumpkins, changed the font and the size, and printed it. We will try to use the computer without our buddy tomorrow at writing time! After recess, we came back for a guest math lesson. Mrs. Mumme, our math coach, came to our classroom to teach us a reasoning lesson. We worked in groups to solve reasoning problems. It was fun. She will be visiting our classroom again soon! After lunch and recess, we came back to the classroom and had word of the day. Our word today was "when". It was a rule follower. It was so popular. We recorded the word family on the "pen of -en". We have to work really hard to spell this word in adult writing, because the "wh" is tricky! Next, it was time for our afternoon story. Mrs. Lauber read the story, Patty's Pumpkin Patch. After the story, we made a personal connection to the story. We could connect it to another story, a movie, or our own lives. We circle the connection on both sides of the paper. We had a short reading workshop. Then, we listened to a pumpkin story, just for fun. It was called Pumpkin Town. It was really funny and had great pictures. At centertime, we went to our fourth center. In the art center, we made the stem and teh leaf on our three dimensional pumpkin project. They are looking great! The last step is tomorrow. We also made a book about how pumpkins grow. Ask me to read it to you when it comes home. At the end of the day, we had art! Remember, tomorrow is Roundtown's Fall Day. Dress in Roundtown clothing or fall attire. We are excited to have our fall party and hear Steven Courtney!

Pumpkins, Pumpkins, Pumpkins

We started our day visiting Our word of the day today was "your". It was a pronoun. The word "your" is a rule breaker, because the "u" does not below with the "or" to say or. It was a popular word family, but there was six different ways to write it. WOW - that is confusing! In math today, we went to three math centers. We finished our packet, and you can see it in our mail tonight. After lunch and recess, Mrs. Myers read the story, The Vanishing Pumpkin. It was a fantasy story. We liked it a lot. After the story, we drew or wrote the story elements - characters, setting -when and where, problem, and solution on a story map. We are working very hard to do neat and careful work. We can earn lots of bean for taking our time! (but not too much :) Then, it was time for reading workshop. After reading workshop, Mrs. Myers read the story, The Pumpkin Patch. It was a great nonfiction story about how a pumpkin grows. The story was full of photographs from a real farm. We learned lots of new facts and saw the steps of how a pumpkin grows. Tomorrow morning, we are going to make our own book about it, to share with you. The day was going by so fast. We went to music and recess and then back to class. Mrs. Myers introduced the new art center. We are making a three dimensional pumpkin. Today we did the first step. We made round, orange balls! We finished our centers for the third day. At the end of the day, Ryan Fahs and Jordan Winkler read a new Junie B. Jones book to us. We finished the day with a "pumpkin hug" from Mrs. Myers!

Pumpkins Everywhere

Our word of the day today was "can". It was a rule follower with a twist. The "a" said a funny sound when it went with the "n". It was a popular word family. We wrote lots of words on the "can of -an". Today's word was a CVC word. After word of the day, we heard the story Apples and Pumpkins. We compared the things that were the same and different about apples and pumpkins on a venn diagram. We will finish this activity tomorrow for morning work. After recess, many of us went to the Book Fair to buy our books. We can still bring our money tonight or tomorrow morning, if we are going to buy books. In math today, we had math centers. We made growing patterns using candy corn and pumpkins. We used math mats and practiced adding using candy pumpkins. Then, we wrote and drew the math the math sentence. In the domino math center, we practiced the commutative property using dominos. The last center group met with Mrs. Myers to do guided math practice. We will continue these center tomorrow. After lunch and recess, Mrs. Myers read the story, Runaway Pumpkin. It was one of her favorites!!! We liked it, too. After the story, we worked in groups to retell the story on a GO map at our seats. We practiced telling the "when-who-where" from the green shape of the GO map. Ask us to retell the story to you. At reading workshop time, we continued to work on our packet. Many of us are finishing, so check our mail to see what we have been working on this month. Mrs. Myers met with two reading groups. Then, it was centertime. We went to our second language arts center. Finally, it was writing time. We were so excited to learn more about "grab the reader" beginnings. Mrs. Myers read us six more story beginnings. We learned that great authors use - great settings, ask a questions, use an onomatopoeia, tell something important, and use once upon a time to get a story started and excite the audience. We learned that you can combine these together to make a really good beginning. Once upon a time can only be used for fantasy, and we should always combine it with another kind of beginning. Then, we continued to write in our journals. Our stories are getting longer and longer. We were so excited about writing, we almost missed recess! Mrs. Myers is going to start our writing time tomorrow with sharing time, because she sees so many neat things in our journals! At the end of the day, we watched the movie, It's A Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown. We listened the beginning of the movie. It was different from the beginning in the story. The book was a "something important" beginning. The movie was just silly events. We ended the day with Shaelyn reading the class a story.

Pumpkin Time

Our theme this week is pumpkins! We are excited that Halloween is right around the corner! Our word of the day today was "we". It was a pronoun. It was also a homonym to the words "wee" and "wii". This word was half a rule breaker and a rule follower. The "e" in "we" says his name, but there is no magic vowel. It does happen in these words - we, be, he, she, me. This morning, we browsed at the Book Fair. Please check my mail today to see the books I might like to purchase. Tomorrow will be buying day. We can also buy books tomorrow evening! In math today, we practiced addition dominos. We read the story, Domino Addition, too. Mrs. Myers taught us how to write our addition sentences across and up and down. On the up and down sentence, we don't use a equal's sign. It 's called an equal's line. We also learned that you can change the order of the numbers in an addition sentence and still get the same sum. It 's called the commutative property. After lunch and recess, we went to Mrs. Lauber's room. Mrs. Myers read the story The Stubborn Pumpkin. It was like the story The Enormous Watermelon, we read during watermelon week. We acted out a retelling of the story in groups. It was funny! We had character cards and narrators for each group. Then, it was time for new pumpkin centers. In games center, we sorted short and long u pictures on pumpkins. In the writing center, we drew a jack-o-lantern. Then, we described it so Mrs. Myers could guess what it looked like, without looking at our picture first! In the poetry center, we read the poem, The Pumpkin on the Vine. We practiced reading it. Then we made a personal connection to the poem. In the listening center, we heard the story, Too Many Pumpkins. We drew and wrote about our favorite part. Art center opens tomorrow! In writing workshop today, we learned to start our story with a "grab the reader" beginning. We listened to the beginning of three stories. We learned to use a descriptive setting or tell something important to get our reader excited about the story. Then, we tried it out! We will continue to learn new ways to start our stories tomorrow.

A Scare-crowy Day

Our word of the day today was "all". It was a rule breaker, because the "a" said the sound of "short o". It was a very popular word family. We recorded the words on the "ball of -all". We learned that "-aw" also says the same sound. In math today, we practiced estimating in our jar. It's when you make a smart guess by comparing something you know to something you don't know. Today we estimated tiny pinecones. There were 55 in the jar. No one had it perfect, but lots of us had between 40 and 60 as a guess. YEAH! We went to music, lunch, and recess. In music we practiced singing our class song. Ask me to sing it for you tonight. After recess, we read the story, Jeb Scarecrow's Pumpkin Patch. After the story, we practiced retelling the story on mini GO maps at our tables. We retold the story using the pattern - when, who, where, first, next, then, next, then, last. We learned that it is very important to start a retelling with our when, who, and where. The who is the character we meet only at the beginning. Ask me to tell you the story of Jeb Scarecrow tonight! Then, we had reading workshop and guided reading. We are checking our packets to make sure we are following directions. Then, we played scarecrow BINGO to practice our word of the day words. Then, it was time for writing workshop. It was computer day. We each got a computer and took it into the big, first grade area. We had a partner from Mrs. Lauber's class. We wrote a class story, each building a part around our circle. We had an exciting beginning, told the when, who, where, and then added lots of events, problems, and a solution. We will be making our story into a book. We had a little bit of a computer problem, but it all worked out. We had our extra recess finally for September. Last, we had a tiny centertime and Ms. Anderson came to our classroom for guidance. She taught us about the stop light for problem solving. We practiced using the steps of the stoplight when we have a problem with a friend. She also taught us to stop and take a few deep breaths before we try to solve a problem, so we don't feel so frustrated. We hope we don't have any problems, but now we know what to do! Don't forget, we have an assembly tomorrow morning. Wear Roundtown PROUD!

Scarecrow Week

Our theme this week is scarecrows. Mrs. Myers is back today, but she is still not healthy. Our word of the day today was "said". It was a rule breaker. It was important, because it tells when someone is talking is a sentence. It is also a clue word that we might see quotation marks or talking marks in our sentence. For health today, we had a fire safety lesson with Mrs. Lauber's class. We brainstorm what we already knew about fire safety, fire prevention, and fire preparation. Then, we watched a video of the story, Stop, Drop, and Roll. We listened for new fire rules. At the end, we worked in groups and sorted cards with fire tips into the three groups. Last, we watched a new fire safety video and share a rule with our neighbor. Remember our fire safety homework is due on Friday. After lunch, we read the story, Little Scarecrow Boy. He had lots of different feelings in the story. After the story, we made personal connections to the feelings the character had in the story. We used a connection paper to write and draw. We circle the feelings that were the same. We had reading workshop, and Mrs. Myers read with boys and girls one at a time. Then, it was centertime. We only have three centers this week, and an art center. In the writing center, you have to write a story using the characters, setting, and problem that Mrs. Myers gives us about a scarecrow. We have to write a solution. In the games center, we are building three scarecrows out of parts for the -ar, -ad, -all word families. We are recording the words we make. In the sentence strips center, we have word of the day words on scarecrow cards. We have to practice spelling the words using mixed up letters and record them by their word shape. In the art center, we are making a giant scarecrow using color patterns. After centers, we read the story, The Scarecrow's Hat. We learned many new vocabulary words. The words we learned, by listening to the story were - swap, trustworthy, benefit, grateful, relief, delighted. Ask me what these words mean. Then, it was time for a quick math lesson. Mrs. Myers put a giant numberline on the floor. We used the numberline on our desk. We had scarecrow puppets to jump adding sentences on the numberline. We found the sum. We will practice more numberline addition for morning work tomorrow. At the end of the day, we went to art!

Half Day of Fall Fun!

Friday was such a busy day. Our word of the day today was "but". It was a CVC pattern word, and it was a rule follower. It was a homonym for the word "butt". We giggled a little bit about this. We learned that there are three meanings of the words "but" and "butt". One is a verb. One is a noun. One is a sentence connecter. We listed the -ut family words on the "nut of -ut". We had an early recess at 10AM. When we got back, we played a game guess the answers to the focused fall riddles we wrote yesterday in writing workshop. Then, it was time for lunch! After lunch and recess, we visited the last two math centers. Then, we had language arts centertime. In the art center, we used marbles covered in paint and rolled them around a tray to created a zig-zag pattern on our leaf. It was so much fun! Soon, it was time to head home. It was such a fast half day. Our theme next week will continue with fall. It's scarecrows! We are excited. Please remember to check our mail today for the newsletter and our fire safety packet that needs to be returned next week! GO PENN STATE!

What a Day!

Today was a very busy day! Our word of the day was "not". The word was a rule follower. The homonym for "not" is "knot". Our word of the day was a popular word family. We recorded the words on the "pot of -ot". We also learned that "not" is a CVC word. That means that it is a consonant-vowel-consonant word. Mrs. Myers tested us on our key ring words this morning. Check in our orange folder tonight to see how we did. After recess we had math. We started new math centers. In the first center, we are working on growing patterns. In the second center, we are counting by 5's. The third center is meeting with Mrs. Myers. She is checking to see if we can count by 2's and 5's. She is also working with us on repeating and growing patterns. In our fourth center, we are working with a partner to write and count by 2's, 5's, and 10's. We will finish up math centers tomorrow morning. After lunch, we heard the story, Nuts To You. The author was Lois Ehlert. Mrs. Myers has many stories in her classroom library by this author. In our lesson, we talked more about root words and endings. Today we looked for the -ing and the -ed ending in story. We did a good job. We found out that the CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) words we learned about in the morning need a "twin" when you add an ending to it. After our lesson, we worked independently on an ending paper. Then it was time for guided reading and reading workshop. Some of us are beginning to finish our first reading workshop packet. You will see it soon . We had centertime next. We finished our fourth center. In the art center, we were allowed to spray paint another color onto our leave. Then, it was writing workshop time. We loved our writing time today. We reviewed FOCUS and we wrote a focused riddle about some part of fall. (a fall sight, fall holiday, fall activity) We had to write 5 clues to describe it. The first couple clues were supposed to be hard and then they were supposed to get easier. Mrs. Myers is making them into a book. First, we are going to play a game to see if the other students can guess our fall thing. If they do, we know we had a good FOCUS. Then, our book will go in the library center. We are so excited! After our last recess we had a fire drill. We got out safely, but Mrs. Myers was very upset with our self-control. We forgot all the rules that we just practiced! Some of us were running. We forgot where to stop outside the building. We were talking on the way outside. We are going to do much better next time! We ended the day with phys. ed. Don't forget that tomorrow is a half day! :)

More Fall Fun!

Today was Madison's birthday. We sang to her first thing in the morning! Our word of the day today was "by". It was a rule follower, because we learned the new rule that "y" sometimes says the sound of "i" at the end of a word. This word family was very popular. We recorded the words on the "cry of -y". There were some other ways to write this word family, too. The word "by" is a homonyn. with the words "bye" and "buy". We thought it was cool that the word "by" rhymes with Guy's name. After library and recess, we went to Mrs. Lauber's room. We heard the story, Earl the Squirrel. It was by Don Freeman, the author of the Cordoroy books. It was such a great story. After the story, we sequenced the events on picture cards. We practiced retelling the story using these pictures. Ask me to retell the story to you tonight. Then, it was time for reading workshop. That's our favorite. At writing workshop time today, we got to meet with Mrs. Lauber's boys and girls again and use the computers. We reviewed how good authors write "focused" stories. We typed our "fun in the fall" stories on the computer. The, we learned to change the font and the size and print them. We illustrated our stories for a focused, class book. At the end of writing time, we had a few minutes to squeeze in a handwriting lesson for letter "Oo". It's an easy letter. After recess, we had centertime. In the art center, we got to spray paint our leaf. Tomorrow, we will get to paint our leaf another color. It was a great day. Sorry again for the late blog - more technical problems!

Focused on Fall

Our word of the day today was "word". It was a rule breaker, because "or" said the sound of "er", "ir" or "ur". It was not a popular word family. In was a noun - a naming word. In math, we estimated acorns. Estimation is making a smart guess. We compared ten acorns to our actual estimation. Grace and Mrs. Myers were just right. We had 47 acorns in our jar. After math, we had library, lunch, and recess. Then, Mrs. Myers read us a story called Fresh Fall Leaves. We listened for the verbs in the story. We noticed that all of the verbs had an -ing ending. This means the verb is happening in the present tense - right now! We learned that the verb is called the root word when it has an ending on it. We also learned that sometimes a verb changes when we add an ending. Sometimes we have to add a twin letter to keep the vowels apart. Sometimes we have to kick the magic e away, because the ending does his job. We did a worksheet to match root words and endings. Then we had guided reading and reading workshop. We had centertime next. Mrs. Myers introduced the first step of the art center. We traced and cut giant fall leaves. When it was time for writing workshop, we went to Mrs. Lauber's room. We learned about FOCUS. Focus is like using a camera to block out all of the other things in the picture and zoom into one main subject. In writing, we pick our the main idea of the story and zoom down to only tell the details about that subject. We practiced listening to Mrs. Lauber and Mrs. Myers tell stories. When they lost their focus, we gave them the "stop" signal. Then, we wrote a focused sentence about "fun in fall" with a partner. We will be working on focus all week. At the end of the day, we had an assembly. Students from the high school performed a play for us. It was funny! We also had a guest reader - Ryan Fahs. We ended the day with Junie B. Jones! YEAH!

Fall into Fall

I apologize again for the lateness of this blog. We are truly having technical difficulties getting into the google server. We were really excited to begin our fall theme today. We began the day telling our favorite fall activities. We will make a graph later in the week. Our word of the day today was "had". It was a rule follower. It was popular, too. We wrote the -ad word family on the "sad dad". This word is closely related to his "brothers" have and has. Today's word happened already - past tense. After word of the day, we met in Mrs. Lauber's room for our social studies lesson. Mrs. Lauber and Mrs. Myers each read us a nonfiction book about fall. They both had mostly facts, but a few opinions about fall. We practiced telling fact and opinion statements. For morning work tomorrow, we will write one fact and one opinion about fall. After that, we went to recess. Then, it was time for math. We warmed up for math by playing a new skip counting game. To help us practice counting by 5's, Mrs. Myers had us make a circle. Then she handed out cards with the numbers from 5 to 100 (skip counting by 5's). We had to put ourselves in order by 5's while she timed us. The first time was a disaster. It took us 2:43 seconds. The second time, it only took us 40 seconds. That is the new record. We are going to play this game everyday this week at morning meeting to see if we can beat this record. After we were all warmed up, we used leaved to make repeating and growing patterns. Both kinds of patterns begin the same, but a repeating pattern stays the same, where a growing pattern changes and gets bigger. We worked with a partner to make growing patterns with our cubes, and then we compared each groups patterns. Last, we made repeating and growing patterns on a worksheet. By then, it was already lunch. After recess, we read another story with Mrs. Lauber's class. Before the story, we worked in pairs. Mrs. Myers gave us each a leave with a fall vocabulary word. We sorted the word into a category - fall sights, fall weather, fall activities, fall holidays. Then, we listened to the story, Autumn Leaves. After the story, we check our sort. We only had to change a few things. Then, we each wrote a page for our class book, In the Fall. After our lesson, we had a new center tour for our fall language arts centers. In the games center, we are sorting leaves onto word family trees by picture. We are practicing the -at, -and, and -it families. In the magnetic letters center, we are spelling word of the day words on leaves by matching the letters. When we record the answers, we have to fill in the missing letters and use the words in a sentence. In the listening center, we are listening to the story, The Nutty Nutcatchers. We are drawing, writing, and citing our favorite part in the book. The last center is the poetry center. It is a new fall poem called Autumn. We each get to take a turn leading our group in the poem. We even get to use Mrs. Myers' pointer. After we all read the poem together, we are making a personal connection to something in the poem and writing about it in our folder. Tomorrow the art center will open! After centers, Mrs. Myers taught us how to do "making words". She handed out letters and we colored them red if they were vowels and blue if they were consonants. Then, we cut our letters apart and began making and sharing two letter words. Then we did the same with three letter words. At the end o the lesson, Mrs. Myers asked us to make the "super jumbo bonus word"! We used all of our letters to make the word that matched Mrs. Myers' clues. The word was "falling". Madison had the word first! At the end of the lesson, we read the list of words that we made. Then, Mrs. Myers played the word detective game with us. She gave a clue and we made the word from the list that matched her clue. It was fun. We can't wait until next week when we get to do "making words" again! Finally, it was time for art! Check out the cool art project we made today! More fall fun tomorrow!

Good-Bye Zoo

It is the end of zoo week, and boy are we exhausted! Our word of the day today was "one". It was a CRAZY rule breaker! The word family was popular, but it looked very different - "-un". We recorded the words on the "sun of -un". Today's word was a homonym for the word "won". Later in the morning, we had a guidance lesson with Miss Anderson. Check my mail today for a packet from Miss Anderson. I have lots to tell you. At the end of the morning, we had a quick math lesson. We used "Lester" the less than alligator and "Grant" the greater than alligator to look at numbers on our hundred's chart. We looked for the greater number and the number that was less. We also practiced counting by 2's, 5's, and 10's. After lunch, we used the computers from the cart. We worked with a partner from Mrs. Lauber's class to type about the animal Mrs. Myers gave us a picture of from the zoo yesterday. We typed the habitat the animal lives in and one fact we learned from the naturalist yesterday. We are going to put all of our facts together into a class book. Look for the book to come home soon. We will be taking turns sharing it with our families. After our writing time, Mrs. Myers read us a silly story, An Animal Strike at the Zoo. We learned that sometimes books have cause and effect relationships. We looked at cause and effect in our own lives. Then, we worked in teams to match the cause and effect events in the story. It was easy. The day was moving fast. We had music and recess. At the end of the day, we visited our fourth center. We were a little sloppy today. We need to work on following ALL the directions on our center next week. We are ready for a rest over the weekend! GO PENN STATE!!! Our theme next week is fall!

Zoo America

Today our class went to Zoo America in Hershey, PA. It was fun learning about animals and their habitats. We had tour guide take us around the zoo to each habitat. Her name was Christy. The first habitat we looked at was in a building. It was the swamp. We looked at a pink bird called a Spoonbill. We saw turtle swimming. He had a funny nose. We saw an armadillo. We saw two alligators and one crocodile. We didn't know if they were real at first, because they didn't move much. We learned that the difference between an alligator and a crocodile was the face. The next habitat we visited was the desert. In the desert, we saw rattlesnakes, spotted skunks, tarantula, tortoises, desert fox and vampire bats. We also saw the bats getting fed their blood. After the desert, we left for the Eastern Woodlands. We saw bobcats, river otters, barn owls, and bears. We went to the Rocky Mountain Grasslands. We didn't see the prairie dogs, because they were underground. We were disappointed. We did see bison, mountain lions, elk, vultures, wolves, falcons, deer, turkey, and an eagle. At the last habitat, the North Woods, we saw the porcupine, the lynx, and swans. We learned so many facts and had a lot of time to ask questions. Our naturalist woke many of the animals up and talked about how they communicate differently than humans. We were so hungry at the end of the tour, so we headed straight for the lunch tables to eat. After lunch, we went to Chocolate World to take the chocolate tour. We ended the day with a chocolate treat! Back at school, we were so tired. We ended the day with our movie time. We watched a movie about zoo animals. What a great day! A special thanks to Mrs. Buzynski for helping Mrs. Myers all day long. She was a great volunteer.

Animals at the Zoo

Our word of the day today was "or". It was a rule follower, but it was the new bossy r rule. It was a very popular word family, but most of the words were spelled different. After calendar, we had a lesson on the habitats of North America. We learned that North America is made of the United States, Mexico, and Canada. We sorted the animals into five habitats that we will see tomorrow. (Sonoran Desert, The Swamp, North Woods, Eastern Woodlands, Rocky Mountain Grasslands ) Tomorrow, we will look at those animals at the trip to Zoo America. In math today, we used the hundred's chart to look for patterns in numbers. We highlighted our chart to show the ways to count by 2's, 5's, and 10's. We played a game around the classroom to practice counting. Dawson and Elle were the winners of a bean. I need to practice counting by 2's and 5's each night before bed, until I can do it perfectly. After lunch and recess, we listened to a story called, Never EVER Shout in the Zoo. It was so funny! We listened for the main idea of the story. We learned that an author writes details to support the main idea. We made a chart that looks like a table to show the main idea and supporting details. Check it out in my mail today! Then, we had guided reading and reading workshop and centertime. After that, it was time to take the district writing assessment. We worked so hard to write our best stories. We thought about the story's focus, content, organization, and proofreading. Our practice stories from yesterday are in our mail. Enjoy them tonight! At the end of writing time, we were exhausted. Luckily, we only had phys. ed. left to end the day! YEAH! Just a reminder, we need to pack our lunch in a disposable bag tomorrow, if we did not order it from the cafeteria. We should wear our zoo t-shirts tomorrow with layers. We are so excited!