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!