Three Days Until the Big Day

It was a different morning for our class today. Mrs. Myers was home with her daugher Madeline, who was sick. We had a substitute named, Mrs. Forney. Our word of the day today was "way". It was rule follower, because it belonged in the "hay of -ay". This word is a homonym for the word weigh. In math today, we practiced subtraction using dominos. We learned to subtract horizontally and vertically. We word as a class and in small groups to write subtraction equations. The rule to remember is "big number first". After lunch and recess, Mrs. Myers came to school. We read a story called Rock Star Santa. It was about a very different Santa. We had to listen to the story without seeing the pictures and visualize how we saw the Rock Star Santa. It was hard, but we listened carefully to the words in the story to make a picture in our head. Then, we drew our picture and wrote words that were important from the story. Last, Mrs. Myers read the whole story to us and showed us the pictures. Our Santa's were close to Rock Star Santa. In writing workshop today, we learned about Christmas Around the World. First, we heard the story, Jingle Bells, about December celebrations in other countries. We talked about our own traditions we have in our homes, too. Last, we used the Smartboard to see celebrations in other countries and learned about Hanukkah and Kwanzaa. At the end of the day, we had phys. ed. We also got gingerbread homework to be due on January 6. We are going to have a great time decorating our projects at home. We also got an early Christmas gift from Mrs. Myers. Our coupon books are awesome. We are going to eat together tomorrow. We will have a special holiday party over lunch!!!

PS - Check out the pictures from our holiday projects. The boys and girls worked so hard on the Polar Express fantasy train ride stories, Christmas similes, possessive packages for 's, and Christmas sense stories.

It's Friday!

Our word of the day today was "no". It looks like "on" backwards. It was a homonym for the word "know". The word "no" was a rule breaker with a twist, because the "o" says his name without a "magic letter" to help. In the morning, we had two special visitors. Mrs. Myers' daughter, Madeline, visited and did morning meeting and word of the day with us. Mrs. Craig was our second visitor. She listened to us sing some of our song and poetry folder songs. After library, lunch, and recess, we heard the story, Three Bears' Christmas. We compared this new version to the story, Goldilocks and the Three Bears. We also made lots of predictions as we read, but the author tricked us sometimes. Ask us how the story was tricky. Then, we went to second grade to meet with our computer buddies. We learned how to use the draw program to made a snowman to match our Frosty acrostic poems from last week. Then, we came back to our classroom and finished our learning and art centers. For writing workshop today, we brainstormed the five different ways we can write a "grab the reader" beginnings. (setting, question, quotation, something important, onomatopoeia). Then, we listened to the beginning of lots of holiday stories. Mrs. Myers had us move to the area of the classroom that showed the kind of beginning the author used. Some books had two different kinds of beginnings. At the end of the day, we earned a Dr. Suess movie. It has been a long week with lots of indoor recess. With Christmas just around the corner, the boys and girls earned an extra reward. We will continue our holiday theme next week!

Lot of Holiday Cheer

Our word of the day today was "number". It was a rule follower. We heard the bossy r sound in it. We also know that the "u" should stay short, because there are two consonants after it! It was not a popular word family. Some of us got to play Dynamite with Mrs. Bashada in the hallway. In math today, we estimated candy canes in our estimation jar. We looked at ten in the jar and estimated that 25 would fill the jar. Then, Mrs. Myers put some in the jar. We knew our estimate would be between 10 and 25. We did a great job and had three winners - Evan, Madison, and Abby. After lunch and recess, we heard a story in Mrs. Lauber's classroom. We heard, Who's That Knocking on Christmas Eve. It was by Jan Brett. After the story, we worked with a partner to retell the story by ordering the picture event cards. We made this into a little book to share with you tonight. Then, it was time for centers. We worked on the body in the art center. After centers, we had a writing workshop lesson. We practiced nouns, adjectives, and similes for the holidays. First we wrote a noun on our wipe-off board. Next, we wrote a simile about the noun. Last, we typed the simile on the computer with a partner from Mrs. Lauber's class. We will be hanging our similes on stockings in the hallway. At the end of the day, we had guidance. Miss Anderson came to discuss the green circle. We learned about empathy. We have stay at homework to share with you from Miss Anderson. If you get a chance to stop in at Roundtown, please check out the awesome writing and projects in our hallway. A special thanks to Mrs. Pressley for all of the artwork she donated to help us share our class projects with Roundtown.

Holiday Fun

Our word of the day today was "see". It was a verb. There is another word "sea" that is the homonym. That word is a noun. Both words are rule followers, because the "e" has a vowel pair who hold the "magic wand". It was a popular word family. In math today, we finished our holiday centers. We had more subtraction practice. Please check my mail to see how we did. When we finished our centers, we played "around the world" with addition facts. After lunch and recess, Mr. Seibel came for a while, while Mrs. Myers had a meeting. He read us the story, Auntie Claus. It was a great story. The little girl, Sophie, in the story changes from the beginning to the end. We discusses how and why Sophie changes how she acted and felt from the beginning to the end of the story. Then, we had reading workshop and guided reading. During this time, Mrs. Rishel took groups of students in the hallway. We practiced word wall words and shot baskets to earn points . We will play this game in the morning meeting. Then, we had centers. After centers, we had writing workshop. In writing workshop, we heard the story, Pussycat's Christmas. The cat in the story used his senses to describe his Christmas Eve. Then, we wrote stories to describe our Christmas Eve using our senses. We will hang our story "ornaments" on a Christmas tree in the hall. We finished our day with art class!

A Snowy Day

Our word of the day today was "go". It was a rule breaker with a twist, because the "o" said his name without another vowel, but this happens in a lot of other "o" family words. We saw that many of the "o" family words look like "ow" or "oe" at the end. In math today, we went to two math centers. There are four centers and a bonus center. We had numberline subtraction. We jumped backwards to match cards. We did growing patterns with Mrs. Myers. We used Hershey kisses to make growing patterns. We had a graphing center, where we sorted and graphed different kinds of Christmas cookies. At the last center, we used Christmas tree math mats and Christmas balls to show subtraction sentences. We drew and crossed out the balls. Our extra center is dice subtraction. After lunch and recess, we read the Mooseletoe story. We stopped at the problem part of the story and wrote our own solutions. Then we listened to the real solution and wrote about it. Guy had the correct solution. After that, we went to our second grade computer buddies. We practiced using the drawing program on Microsoft Word to color, draw, move, and write text. We can try this at home! Then, we came back to our classroom and had making words. We made three and four letter words using the letters, e, e, n,r,s,s, p, t. Then we made the super-jumbo bonus word - presents. Maddie had it first. At the end of the day, we had centers. We are making a reindeer in the art center. YEAH SNOW!!!

December Holidays

Our theme this week is December holidays. Our word of the day today was "write". It was a rule breaker, because the "w" was silent. It had a homonyn, "right". It was very popular, so we listed the words on the kite of "ite". We also listed words on the the "light of -ight". In math today, we practiced subtraction on the numberline. We used Mrs. Myers' giant numberline and we each had a turn jumping a subtraction equation. We got to jump backwards!!!! At our seats, we used cubes to jump the equation. We had races and Mrs. Myers jumped, too. The rule to remember in subtraction - The biggest number must come first!!! After lunch and recess, we went to Mrs. Lauber's room to read the story, Mrs. Claus Takes a Vacation. After the story, we went back to our classroom and worked in groups of three or four to organize the events on a GO map. Last, we practiced retelling the WHEN - WHO - WHERE. We also practiced deciding the important vocabulary to include when we shared each event in our own words. Then in was time for new Christmas centers. In games center one, we practiced our consonant blends - gr, cr, fr, br. We put decorations on the correct blend tree. We had to color the code on the worksheets. In games center 2, we matched the contraction "nose" to the reindeer's antler's that had the two separate words. In the sentences strip center, we put holiday words in alphabetical order by the second letter. We also practiced writing adjectives to describe each noun. In the writing center, we practiced proofreading a nonfiction story about the holidays. At writing workshop today, we learned about "'s". This is called a possessive. It means that something belongs to someone. We wrote holiday possessives by giving presents to our friends and family. We will be making a possessive present tree outside the classroom. (ex. Mom's necklace) At the end of the day, we watched a holiday movie about Kwaanza and Christmas.

Polar Express Party

Today was our Polar Express Party Day! Our word of the day was "more". It was a rule breaker, because it had a decoration "e". It was a popular word family, and there were many ways to spell the -ore family. This word is an adverb. In math today, we practiced subtraction using Polar Express story problems. We used the strategy "act it out" to act out subtraction problems. We highlighted the important information from the story problem and wrote the equation. At the end of the lesson, we worked in groups to create and act out our own subtraction story problem. After lunch and recess, we finished the Polar Express movie. Then, we went to centers. In the art center, we finished our crayon resist by watercolor painting. Then, it was finally time for our Polar Express Party. We made a train in the hallway and Mrs. Myers punched our tickets. We listened to songs from the Polar Express soundtrack. We drank hot chocolate and ate candy canes. Then, we listened to the Polar Express story being read. At the end of the party, we played two games - The Conductor Says and Pass the Bell, like hot potato, but with a character trait twist. Ask me about it at home tonight!!! At the end of the day, we had our special sharing. Mr. Seibel listened to our special sharing, too. It was a great day, but very busy. Our theme next week will be December holidays. Sorry there are no pictures on the blog. Mrs. Myers' computer crashed and lost all of our pictures!