Nonfiction Weather Day

Our word of the day today was "mean". It was a rule follower, because the "ea" vowel pair said the name of "long e". We saw that there were many words in the -ean and -een family. We even saw a word that looked like -ene. The word "mean" has a homonyn for meaning, but they both look the same. After recess, we had a short reading workshop. Mrs. Myers met with 2 guided reading groups. We finished our bossy r games during game time. After lunch and recess, Mrs. Myers showed us yesterday's book - Sergio and the Hurricane and another fiction book called Hurricanes. Then, she showed us a nonfiction book called Hurricanes! We took a picture walk of the book. Then, we made a list on the chart of all the elements of a nonfiction book. We decided that many nonfiction books have photographs, glossary, index, table of contents, boxes, charts, and captions, and headings. Then, Mrs. Myers read most of the story to us. We learned how to read a nonfiction book using one heading at a time and making sure our brain remembers the new facts for each heading before we read a new heading. Ask me how this is like a tennis or baseball machine throwing too many balls. At the end of the lesson, we had to label the parts of the nonfiction book. Then, it was time for centers. We visited our second center of the week. We also worked in our groups for our weather report project for Friday. Mrs. Myers told us that we need to make sure we proofread our work and follow all parts of the directions. At math time today, we did three math stations for shapes. First we reviewed our 2D and 3D shapes using our Math Dictionaries. Then we visited the stations. At station one, we used green triangle books to see how many would cover each 2D shape. At station two, we sorted 2D shapes by different attributes. At station three, we examined the attributes of 3D shapes. Before recess, Mrs. Myers read a different nonfiction story to us called, What's the Weather. We looked for the table of contents and the headings. At the end of the day, we had art. We also said good-bye to Shaelyn. Today was her last day in our classroom. Mrs. Myers hopes we are better listeners tomorrow, because we are not all listening and thinking!

Weather Week

Our theme this week is weather and seasons. The word of the day today was "too". It was a rule follower, because it had the "boo of -oo" sound. This word has a few popular homonyms - to, too, and two. Later in the meeting, Mrs. Myers had guided reading with three groups, while we had reading workshop and game time. During game time, we practiced our bossy r sound games again, but we had a different envelop from last week. After lunch and recess, Mrs. Myers read the story, Sergio and the Hurricane. We had to decide the author's purpose for writing the story. We actually came up with two good purposes - to tell facts about hurricanes and to teach us a lesson about preparing for hurricanes and not wishing for bad things to happen, just because they seem exciting. Next, we had a center tour and new centers. In the games center, we are sorting raindrops with "hard c" and "soft c" pictures and words on them. In the writing center, we are meteorologists, writing a weather report for the assigned season. In the poetry center, we are reading the poem, Clouds. Then, we are using bendaroos to find the blends, digraphs, -ill family words, and -ow family words in the poem. The last center is the listening center. We are listening to different weather music and visualizing what we think is happening in the song. After we draw the pictures that is in our head, we are writing a story about it! We have a special weather project as the art center this week. We'll find out about it tomorrow! We had music next and after recess, we came back for our weather and seasons lesson of the day. Mrs. Myers gave us a weather journal to use this week. Then, we had to watch a movie about spring and write down three new facts we learned. We did the same thing for summer. Then, we wrote a question for each one about something we still want to learn about spring and summer weather. Mrs. Myers is going to find the answers for us! YAY!

Finally a Spring Day!

Today was the last day of our spring theme. We are glad that today's weather feels like spring! Our word of the day today was "right". It had lots of homonyms for meaning. The word "write" was a homonyn, too. Today's word was a rule breaker, because the "gh" made the "i" say his name. We read the word families on the "light of -ight" and "kite of -ite". After recess, we had guided reading and reading workshop. At 11:00AM, we had phonics game time. We were finishing our bossy r sorts and practicing spelling words with a partner. After lunch, Mrs. Myers read the story, When Will It Be Spring. We listened for the most important event in the story. This is the event that changes the characters or the action in the story. We did a great job finding the most important event in the story today! Next, we had math centers. They are coming home today! After that, we made our video of the field trip. We also did a concept circle activity to show facts and opinions about spring. Check it out in our mail today. We even had time for some journal writing. At the end of the day, we watched a video about animals in the spring. We made connections to the animals we see in spring. We had Friday sharing at the end of the day! It was a great week! Yeah spring!

Spring Learning

Our word of the day today was "line". It was a rule follower, because it followed the CVCe rule. The -ine family was a little popular. After recess, we had reading workshop and guided reading with Mrs. Winstel. She met with the Spider groups and the Shark groups. It was soon time for lunch and recess. After that, Mrs. Myers was back! We heard the story, That's What Happens in Spring. We listed for the author's purpose for writing the story. We learned that author's write to entertains us, to teach us facts, to share their opinions, and to teach us something. Next, it was time for math centers. We practiced counting and stamping money, 2D shapes and fractions, 2D and 3D shape BINGO, and elapsed time on the human clock. Then it was writing workshop time. Mrs. Myers met with group 1. We worked on using words for "went" in our stories. During sharing time, we shared our purpose for writing our stories, because we are authors. At the end of the day, we had phys. ed. Then, we worked on our posters for tomorrow's video sharing about our field trip. We are excited to share with you tomorrow.

Spring is Here (???)

Our theme this week is spring! Spring is officially here, but the weather is a little too chilly! Our word of the day today was "through". It was a tricky one, because the "gh" was silent and the "ou" said the sound of "the boo of oo". It was an adverb. The word "threw" is a homonym. This "threw" is a verb. Later in the morning, we had reading workshop and guided reading groups. Mrs. Myers was so excited to have her group time back! During our game time, we learned the bossy r sort that we will be doing this week in our groups. We will be sorting -or/-ar words and pictures or -er,-ir, -ur words and pictures. After lunch, we started by looking at a list of eight vocabulary words that were focused on spring. We had to independently write a vocabulary chain story using the words in order. We were trying to write facts using the words and show the meaning of the vocabulary words. Then we shared our stories. Mrs. Myers read the story, When Will It Be Spring. We listened to see how the author uses the words in order. We learned that swallow is a verb, but in the story, it is a bird that comes in the spring. After the story, we did a shared writing, using the vocabulary words just like the author. Mrs. Myers also read us an acrostic alphabet story about spring. We learned some new facts from this story, too. We had art class early today. After art, we had writing workshop time. Mrs. Myers was conferencing with a group, while the rest of us wrote in our journals. After recess, we learned about the quarter. We heard the story, The Big Buck Adventure. Then, we shared with Mrs. Myers all the facts we already knew about the quarter. We read the story, Quarter. We added new facts to our list. Then, we went to the bank area. We practiced ordering and counting the coins. Then, we used our real coins to count money all by ourselves. If you did not send a bag of money to school with your child, please do so my tomorrow! Also, please remember to dress up for the disco music era tomorrow, to celebrate in music class!!!

A Busy Half Day!

Today was a busy half day of school. Our word of the day today was "help". It was a rule follower. It is a verb. It was not a popular word family. We practiced a 3D shape game at morning meeting that we really loved. It was like hot potato, but you didn't get out. You had to name the 3D shape you were holding. We had an early lunch and recess. Then, Mrs. Myers read us the story, Clever Tom and the Leprechaun. It was a retelling of an Irish folktale. Before the story, Mrs. Myers listed verbs on the chart. We found that there were three different verbs to tell the same action. After the story, we organized the verbs on a timeline. Then we made our own timeline and added new verbs. At the end of the day, we looked at a map of the world and picked out Ireland. We learned how to use the cardinal directions north, south, east, and west. We also learned the intermediate directions of northeast, northwest, southeast, southwest. Then, we tried out the direction on a map of Ireland by taking our little shamrock man on a tour to visit some of the sites! We were so excited to have our half day!

Money, Money, Money

Our word of the day today was "where". It was a rule breaker, but related to the word, "there". Today's word has a homonym, wear. There were lots of words that sounded like today's word family, but they looked like -air, -are, -ear. Later in the morning, we heard the story, The Luckiest St. Patrick's Day. We listened for pronouns in the story. We learned that a pronoun is a word that replaces a noun. We practiced pronouns on a worksheet. After recess, we had reading workshop and Mrs. Myers read with the last student. We will begin new guided reading groups on Monday. After lunch, we read the story, Leprechaun on the Loose. Near the end of the story, Mrs. Myers stopped and we debated the next event in the story. We had two sides to the story - Should the boy in the story let the trapped leprechaun go and get his gold, or should he keep leprechaun in the trap and clear his name for the bad things the leprechaun had done??? We formed two groups and made a list of all the reasons why our decision was the best. Then, we had our debate. Mrs. Myers picked the winner. It was the "let the leprechaun out" group! We liked debating and would like to have some debates at home. Ask me about it tonight! Then, we had center time. We visited our third center. After centers, we had a math lesson on dimes. We brainstormed everything we already knew about dimes. Then, Mrs. Myers read a story called, Dimes. We touched real dimes. Then, we learned to count dimes, nickels, and pennies. Most of us are doing really well counting money. At the end of the day, we watched a video about St. Patrick's Day and another short video about money. Remember, tomorrow is a half day of school. We dismiss at 12:30PM!

Happy St. Patrick's Day

Happy St. Patrick's Day. We were all wearing green today! HOORAY! We started our day with a great leprechaun hunt. Lucky O'Sullivan, a leprechaun, visited our classroom. He led us on a treasure hunt of clues. We looked all around our classroom for him, and we even had to go see Mrs. Howard. Finally, Ryan discovered the last clue and the treasure! Although we didn't catch Lucky, he left us some golden Irish candy! We were so excited and wound up! Then, it was back to learning. Our word of the day today was "great". It was a rule breaker, because the "ea" vowel pair did not say the correct sound. It said the sound of "long a". We learned that the word "great" was an adjective. It has a homonym - grate, which is a verb. We also learned that the "ate" family looks like -ate, -eight, or -ait. After recess, we had a little more leprechaun trouble. Then, we had reading workshop time. At game time, we did an independent making words activity. We will continue this activity tomorrow. Mrs. Myers is almost finished reading with us one at a time. After lunch and recess, Mrs. Myers had us brainstorm everything we thought we knew about St. Patrick's Day holiday. We knew it was an Irish holiday with leprechauns, and it had something to do with St. Patrick, but most of us didn't know who he was. So, we read the story, Patrick, Patron Saint of Ireland. We learned lots of facts about the life of St. Patrick. After the story, we listed the facts on a giant shamrock. We also learned that St. Patrick's Day is celebrated on the day St. Patrick died over 1,600 years ago. There was nothing about leprechauns in the story!!! We were so surprised. Ask me to share some facts about St. Patrick tonight. Then, it was time for centers. We visited our second center today. After centers, we had math. In math today, we learned about the nickel and the penny. First, we brainstormed a list of what we already knew about the penny. Then, Mrs. Myers read the Penny story. We learned a few more facts and added them to our list. We also looked at five different real pennies to see the attributes . Then, we read the Nickel story and looked at 5 different nickels. Four were old nickels, but one was the new nickel. We saw the changes made to the nickel after 2005. We practiced counting by 1's and 5's. Then, we practiced ordering coins from the "most expensive" to the "least expensive". We counted nickels and pennies in our piggy bank. We can practiced counting pennies and nickels at home, too. In writing workshop, we went to Mrs. Lauber's class. We talked about the word "went" as a boring verb. Next, we got in groups and brainstormed a list of words that could replace "went" . Before recess, each group shared the top 3 from their list. We will continue this activity tomorrow. We ended the day with phys. ed. It was a fun day!

St. Patrick's Day Theme

Our theme this week is St. Patrick's Day and boy are we excited!!! We learned to say hello is Irish. Our word of the day today was "say". It was a rule follower, because it followed the "hay of -ay". We read the words in this popular word family. This word was a verb. Later in the morning, we had library. After lunch and recess, we had a language arts lesson about verb endings. We read the story, The Luckiest Leprechaun. After the story, we sorted verbs by their endings, by each reading a verb from the story and finding our groups - the twins, the share a vowel, and the regular root word and ending group. We recorded our answers on a worksheet. Then, it was time for reading workshop. Mrs. Myers read with some of us one at a time. Then, it was time for our new centers. In the games center, we matched shamrock puzzles with contractions on them. In the games center two, we had to look at the shape on the shamrock and find a word of the day word with the same letter shape. We practiced writing and spelling other word of the day words. In the writing center, we were proofreading a St. Patrick's Day story for spelling, punctation, and capital letters. In the listening center, we are listening to the story, The Leprechaun's Gold. Then, we are putting giant quotation sentences together from the story. We don't have art center this week, because it is only a four day week. In writing workshop today, we learned an Irish poem called a limerick. It is a five line poem with three long lines and two short lines. The long lines rhyme and the short lines rhyme. We did a shared writing activity to write a class limerick. Check out the link tonight! At the end of the day, we had math. We are learning about money, saving, and spending. Mrs. Myers asked us what we already knew about money. We knew a lot. We sang three money songs. We read the story, Alexander, Who Used to be Rich Last Sunday. Then, we added new money labels to our Math Dictionary. We will begin learning about each of the coins tomorrow. We are excited to see if the leprechauns come to visit us tomorrow. We even cleaned our desks, in case they come looking for dirty ones to dump on the floor!

Good Bye Kevin Henkes

Today was a great day! We were a little noisy, but we had a lot of fun learning. We started the day by taking a survey on the laptop computers about our favorite Kevin Henkes' book. At our morning meeting, Mrs. Myers share the results. You can check them out by clicking on the link http://spreadsheets.google.com/pub?key=pX3U8NZ0qgv6YRbbp1wnNfw or visit Mrs. Myers' teacher page and select the weekly survey tap. We are going to try to have one survey a week! Our word of the day today was "think". It was a rule follower. We noticed the "th" digraph, the "nk" blend, and the words "in" and "thin". The word think is a noun. There were a lot of words in the -ink family. Later in the morning, we had music class. After lunch and recess, our class divided in half. Some of us went to Mrs. Lauber's room for a Lilly's Big Day retelling lesson with pictures. The rest of us stayed with Mrs. Myers and some of Mrs. Lauber's class came over. We read Lilly's Big Day and did a story retelling, using a retelling frame. We practiced retelling the character's names, the setting when and where, and using important vocabulary from the story! Ask us to retell the story at home! Next, we had reading workshop time. Mrs. Myers read with a few new friends. A lot of us are finished our packets for reading workshop. Remember to ask me all about it when it comes home in my mail. Then, we had writing workshop time. We had journal writing today. Mrs. Myers conferenced with some of us. On Monday, we learned about the new writing workshop rotation we will be doing. We are going to be focusing more on our journals for a while, now that we have learned all the things that good authors do!!! Mrs. Myers will have rotating conferences with us and we will have a publishing table, too. We are excited to share our stories! Before recess, we had center make-up day. After we finished our centers, we worked on our bonus book for Kevin Henkes or continued to write in our journals. We went out a little early for the rest of our February extra recess. At the end of the day, we were so excited to share our 3D shape show and tell object. We went out to the big area and share our object with Mrs. Lauber's class, too. We put our object in the center of the circle. The boys and girls all whispered to their neighbors what 3D shape we had. Then, we counted down "3-2-1" and the boys and girls all said the name of the 3D shape. At the end, we looked at the the spheres, cylinders, cones, rectangular prisms, and cubes side by side. They were all different sizes, but the faces were still the same. So were the other attributes. It was lots of fun! Our theme next week is St. Patrick's Day! Yay!

Lots of Kevin Henkes; Stories

Our word of the day today was "sentence". We thought this word was really long! We also noticed that we could see two chunks in the word sentence- sent and ten. We also knew that the "e" had the job of changing the "c" to say the "s" sound! The word of the day today is a rule follower. Today's word was a noun. This morning we had reading workshop. Mrs. Myers met with a few individual students while we worked at our seats. Mrs. Bashada pulled students into the hallway during the morning to stretch out penguin words. We also worked with a partner during our games time to practice spelling word of the day words. After lunch and recess, we Mrs. Myers read the stories, Julius the Baby of the World and Jessica. After each story, we decided the author's purpose for writing each of the stories. We came up with some great ideas. This is a question we can ask ourselves after reading any story! Next, it was center time. Some of us finished our fourth center, but most of us need tomorrow for make-up day". Instead of writing workshop today, Mrs. Mumme, the math coach, did a telling time Smartboard lesson for us. We practiced telling time to the hour and half hour. We also played some games that we can find on Mrs. Myers' and Mrs. Mumme's teacher pages. After this, we had a math lesson on 3D shapes. We brainstormed all we thought we knew about 3D shapes. Maddy told us that 2D shapes are part of 3D shapes. So, we looked all around the room and found that this was true. We also found that our classroom was full of 3D objects! Next, Mrs. Myers showed us five 3D shapes- the cube, cone, rectangular prism, sphere, and cylinder. We learned that these shapes are also called solid shapes. We also learned that the cube has faces that are squares, the cone has one circle face, the rectangular prism has rectangle faces, and the cylinder has two circle faces. We added some labels to our math dictionary today. We also are bringing home a shape spotters show and tell homework sheet. We have shape homework tonight! We have to find an object to bring to school tomorrow, that is an example of our 3D shape. At the end of the day, we went to art. We were so happy to have Mrs. Myers back today! :) Don't forget your homework for tomorrow!

Kevin Henkes Week

First, I want to apologize for the lack of blog on Friday. After typing the boys and girls message twice, it never posted. Sorry! Our theme this week is Kevin Henkes. He is an author and illustrator. Our word of the day today was "name". It was a rule follower, because it followed the CVCe rule. It was a noun. The -ame family can be written as -ame or -aim. Today we had two Millersville University students in our classroom. Ask us about it! They will be here for the next four weeks. Later in the morning, we had guided reading and reading workshop. At game time, we worked independently at stretching penguin words to match pictures. We will play a game with our group tomorrow, using those words. After lunch and recess, we had a fact sort using facts from Kevin Henke's life. Mrs. Myers hung up questions about Kevin Henkes. Then, she gave us cards that had all the fact answers. We had to predict what question our card answered. Then, we went to Kevin Henkes webiste and read his biography. We checked our answers. We had all "thumbs up"! It was great! We learned so many facts. Then, we had a center tour of our Kevin Henke's centers. In the games center, we are sorting coins into Lilly's purple plastic purses for -or, -ar, and -ur sounds. In the Read the Room center, we are proofreading words Lilly spells wrong from around our classroom. In the listening center, we are listening center, we are listening to the story, LIlly's Purple Plastic Purse. We had to tell three character traits of Lilly and make a character collage of them using magazine pictures. In the writing center, we are sorting the problems and solutions from Kevin Henke's stories. Then, we are writing a solution to a mouse problem of our own. At math time, we did a brainstorm about shapes. We knew lots about them. Then, Mrs. Myers read the story, Where's a Square. Finally, Mrs. Myers gave us each a pipe cleaner to make two dimensional shapes out of. We added labels for each shape in our Math Dictionary. We learned the shapes circle, square, rectangle, triangle, rhombus, trapeziod, hexagon. We also learned the words angle and attribute. We will continue learned about these shapes tomorrow. At the end of the day, we had phys. ed and sharing! We are excited for Kevin Henke's week!

Pizza Party Friday

Lots and Lots of Pizza

Our word of the day today was "our". This word is often mixed up with the word "are". "Our" is a rule follower because the -ou is saying the sound of the ou of ouch. "Our" is also a homonym for the word hour. This is a math word we use when telling time. This morning we had music. After lunch and recess, we had a guest teacher, Mrs. Thomas. She taught us a lesson on reading fluency. We have been talking about fluency with Mrs. Myers in our own classroom. We learned that good readers read fluently. To read fluently we have to read smoothly and watch for punctuation. We also have to obey the reading speed limit. In Mrs. Thomas' lesson, we practiced phrasing. We learned that phrasing is when you group words together and then read the groups of words with pauses. We can show you this at home. You can see some of the activities we tried on Mrs. Thomas' teacher page. Then, on the smartboard, we practiced reading phrases. Mrs. Thomas timed us to see how fluently we could read the phrases. It took us one minute and six seconds. We also learned to visualize phrases as we read them. Then, it was center time. We visited out 3rd center today. Mrs. Myers introduced a fun bonus game to play if we finish centers. It is called roll a pizza. We love this game! Ask us about the game at home! In math today, we learned a lot about fractions. We got labels to put into our math dictionaries. We reviewed the terms numerator (part) and denominator (whole). We worked a lot with part and whole. We heard the story Eating Fractions. We listened to hear the fractions 1/2, 1/3, and 1/4. We also learned that the smaller the numerator, the larger the piece of the fraction. We brainstormed where we can find and use fractions in real life, too. We were amazed with our list! We will continue working on fractions tomorrow. After our last recess, we got our first letter from our pen pals. We wrote letters back to our pen pals. We were so excited to finally write a letter back to them after receiving letters from them. We had a very busy afternoon! At the end of the day, Mrs. Myers read the story, The Princess and the Pizza. It was a great story! We can't wait for our pizza party tomorrow! Don't forget it you are donating a pizza ingredient...we need them first thing tomorrow morning! Mrs. Myers will be looking for the volunteer chefs at 8:45 tomorrow morning! YUM! YUM! :)

Pizza, PIzza, Pizza

Our word of the day today was "thing". It was a rule follower. We wrote lots of word family words on "the ring of -ing". Later in the morning, Mrs. Myers read the story, Gregory the Terrible Eater. We helped Gregory sort healthy and unhealthy foods into bags. We also talked about foods on the food pyramid. We had a short reading workshop and guided reading time. Then it was lunch. After lunch, Mrs. Lauber's class joined us to hear the story, Pizza at Sally's. After the story, we worked with a partner (or two) to retell an event from the story using a picture from the book. We had to write our event on a sentence strip. Next, we put the events in order to retell story. We did a great job. Ask us about the story tonight. Next was centertime. We visited our second pizza center. Then, it was math time. In math today, we learned about fractions. We learned the vocabulary - numerator (part) and denominator (whole) and fraction bar. We also learned that fractions must have EQUAL parts! We practiced drawing and dividing shapes in half today and practiced making fractions using groups of students. We read the story, Give Me Half, about fraction at home. In writing workshop today, we were learning to use strong tag words. We don't want to overuse "said" or "asked". We listened to the story, The Little Red Hen Makes a Pizza. We heard the said tag word used too much. After the story, we made posters and replaced the word "said" with a stronger tag word. Check out my poster tonight! We ended the day at art!

Back from the Snow!

We finally got to start our week, although it was delayed today. We were excited to start our pizza theme today. Our word of the day was "after". It was a rule follower. It was also an adverb. We had to skip a few things today to make up for the delay, but we still had time to take a center tour of our pizza centers. In the games center, we are matching pizza puzzles by looking for a contractions and the two words used to make it. In the sentence strips center, we are stretching and spelling pizza toppings. In the writing center, we are writing a letter that Mrs. Myers is really going to send to our favorite pizza restaurants. We are also practicing addressing the envelop on the back. In the listening center, we are listening to Curious George and the Pizza. We are writing the setting, characters, problem, and solution to the story. We have to listen carefully to pick the problem and solution that match. We have lots of new pizza books in the library center, too. We also celebrated Dr. Seuss' birthday and will be reading some of our favorites this week! At the end of the day, we started a new topic in math - fractions. First we made a list of what we already knew about fractions. Next, Mrs. Myers read the story, Pizza Pizzaz, that had lots of pizzas divided into fractions in the story. At the end, we learned that a fraction is when something is divided into equal parts. We practiced dividing shapes into halves and learned the fraction 1/2. We also learned that a fraction shows the part over the whole. We call these parts the numerator and the denominator. We will be making fraction 1/2 pizzas tomorrow morning. We will learn more fractions all week! The last thing we did today, was practice for Math Mania tonight. If you signed up to attend, we'll see you tonight at 6PM!