Factful Friday

We started our day with a Roundtown Town Meeting. We heard poetry by second and third graders! Back in our classroom, the word of the day was "very". It was a rule breaker, because the "e" said the name of long a. We looked at other words in this family and they all looked different - erry, ary, airy. The word "very" has a homonyn with "vary". We didn't know that word! Before lunch, we heard a penguin book called, "How Much is a Million". We also looked at a nonfiction penguin story called Face to Face Penguins. We examined the table of contents and the index to learn how to use a nonfiction text. After lunch and recess, Mrs. Lauber's class came over. We did a vocabulary sort penguin words. We sorted them groups around the room for how penguins move, how penguins eat, penguin's habitats, kinds of penguins, and penguin's body parts. There were a few words we were sure of including - Adelie, colony, rookery, colony, and Peru. Mrs. Lauber read two nonfiction stories about penguins. We learned all sorts of facts. We also listened for those tricky vocabulary words. We found where they belong in the sort. Then, we made penguin brochures to show all the facts we learned about penguins this week! They looked great! Be sure to check mine out tonight! After this, we had centers. We worked hard to finish our giant penguins in the art center. At the end of the day, we watched a movie called Polar Prowl, by National Geographic. It is a great documentary for kids about living in a polar habitat, with a special section on penguins. We had our Friday sharing to end the day! What a fun week of facts and nonfiction! We are very excited for our pizza theme next week! Remember to send in the donation and volunteer form for our pizza party next Friday!

Lots of Centers

Our word of the day today was "most". It was a rule breaker, because the "o" said the long sound without another vowel helping him. Later in the morning, we had reading workshop and guided reading. After lunch, we read the story, Tacky in Trouble and made personal connections to Tacky's feelings as he got himself into "trouble". Next, we had center time and visited our fourth center. At writing workshop time, we finished our penguin adventures. Mrs. Myers conferenced with some of us and we practiced our proofreading skills. Mrs. Myers shared three great stories from Nick, Abby, and Ian. We are improving at using our fiction writing plan. We worked on our journals while we were waiting for our conferences. Before recess, we finished our math centers. They will be coming home tomorrow. At the end of the day, Mrs. Myers changed our library center. We can't wait to use it tomorrow!

More Penguins

Our word of the day today was "back". It was a rule follower. The -ack family is sometimes confused with the -ake family. The word family was very popular, so we made a list of the words on the "sack of -ack". Later in the day, we heard the story, Penguin Quartet. It was a fiction story. We practiced cause and effect for events in the story. Then, we had reading workshop and guided reading. Then, we had our regular center time. We visited our second center of the week. Mrs. Myers opened the art center. We are making a giant penguin. Then it was time for math centers. We used penguins to practiced double digit subtraction, stamps for double digit addition, made a human clock to tell time to the hour and half hour, and met with Mrs. Myers to tell time and show elapsed time. We had a bonus pattern center with polar animals. At the end of the day, we had a guidance lesson with Miss Anderson. We learned about being a good friends. We also finished the day, by conferencing with our writing partner about our Penguin Adventures. More to come tomorrow!

Penguin Week

Our theme this week is penguins. The word of the day today was "me". It was mostly a rule follower, but the "e" was saying his name without any help! We saw that some of the words that rhyme with "me". They had "ea", "ee", and "ey" endings, too. This word was a pronoun. Later in the morning, we had reading workshop and guided reading. Mrs. Myers put us into different groups today to work on something that is difficult for us. We will continue to work in these groups for the rest of the week. We are working on different phonics games. After lunch and recess, we had a new activity. Mrs. Myers put a list of new vocabulary on the overhead. We had to make a "vocabulary chain" which is a true story using each word in order. We worked in groups to write and share the stories. We highlighted the new vocabulary words. Then, Mrs. Myers read the story, The Emperor's Penguin. We listened for the words to see if we used them correctly in our own stories. Then, it was time for writing workshop. We started a new story plan called, A Penguin Adventure. We used our organizer. Today, Mrs. Myers gave us each a story problem for the "action" part of our story. We also met with our "problem buddy" to brainstorm on our action plan. We conferenced with Mrs. Myers. We will continue writing our stories later this week. It was time for new centers. In the games center, we are"fishing" for fish for the adjective penguin, noun penguin, and verb penguin. In the sentence strips center, we are sorting penguins to the consonant digraph iceberg, consonant blend digraph iceberg, and the neither iceberg. In the writing center, we are adding clothespin quotation marks and commas to penguin sentences. We are adding tags to the sentences. In the listening center, we are listening to Cinderella Penguin. We are comparing the story to the regular Cinderella story on a venn diagram. Tomorrow, the art center will open. At the end of the afternoon, we had a new activity called "concept circles". We had a list of four words, and we had to find the word that didn't belong. Then, we had to name the rest of the group. We learned facts about penguin's bodies, the mother penguin's job, the father penguin's job, and the polar habitat. We will share these with you tonight. Also, if you are interested in a "GO GREEN at CENTRAL YORK" shirt, please let Mrs. Myers know this week for an order form. All money benefits the Heffier Foundation.

A Week of Presidents

Our word of the day today was "live" and "live". It was a crazy word, because it is pronounced two ways and means two different things. When the "i" says his name, it is a rule follower, because it is a CVCe word. When the "i" is saying his short sound, it is a rule breaker. The CVCe way was much more popular as a word family. At 9:45AM, Mrs. Miller, a dental hygenist came to Roundtown to teach us all about taking care of our teeth. We learned about the bad stuff called plaque. It really likes sugar and uses it to make acid that eats holes in our teeth. We learned how to brush and floss our teeth using a giant toothbrush. We also learned healthy foods to eat to help keep our teeth clean! When we got back to our classroom, Mrs. Myers read us two tooth books, Wiggly Wobbly Tooth and Moose's Loose Tooth. After lunch and recess, we read the story, Arthur Meets the President. We listened for common and proper nouns in the story. Then, Mrs. Myers gave us a card with a noun. The first letter was missing. We had to decided if it was a common or proper noun. Then, we had to write the first sound using a lowercase or capital letter and put it in the correct hula hoop for common or proper nouns. Then, it was reading workshop time. We had a quick one today! After that, we had writing workshop. We practiced using our plan to write our president story. We also read with a partner and worked on writing a focused ending. Then it was time for music. At the end of the day, we practiced telling time the digital and analog way on our clocks. Then, we learned a new part of telling time called elapsed time. It is showing how much time passes on the clock between two events. We talked about all the times we use elapsed time in our day at home and at school. We used two giant clocks to make elapsed time for one and two hours. We even tried elapsed time up to six hours. We will be looking for elapsed time at our own house this weekend. Have a good one!

George Washington Day

Our theme this week is Presidents. Today we learned all about George Washington. Our word of the day today was "know". It was a rule breaker, because the "k" was silent. The "ow" was a diphthong, like on the snow of -ow. This word is a homonym with the word "no". We call this the "know with your brain". We had library this morning, too. After lunch and recess, Mrs. Myers read the story, Grace For President. We listened for the author's purpose for writing the story. We found four different purposes. Then, we sorted story events that support each purpose. This is something you can ask us after we read at night. Then, it was time for president learning. We used the BookFlix program to hear the story, So You Want to be the President. We worked in groups to remember facts about being the president. Ask me a few. Then, Mrs. Myers showed us a tour of the White House on the internet. It has many special things. Next, Mrs. Myers read us the story, George Washington. We listened for facts to fill in an information sheet. Then, we went to Mrs. Lauber's class and taught them the new facts about George Washington. Tomorrow, Mrs. Lauber's class will teach us facts about Abraham Lincoln. At the end of the day, we had math. We practiced telling time to the hour and half hour. We will be making a human clock, soon. We played a game for the "half hour" times. We had to yell out the hour that we were in! Tomorrow, we will play time BINGO! Mrs. Myers will not be here tomorrow, because she has a doctor's appointment. NO BLOG!

A Great Day!

Today we had a new fresh start. Mrs. Myers even moved our desks! We had a great day with our learning and our behavior. Our word of the day today was "little". It was a rule breaker and a rule follower, depending on how you say the word. The word "little" has a lot of extra letters. It is an adjective. It does not have very many words in it's "family." Later in the morning, we had guided reading and reading workshop. At 11:00, we played our Blend BINGO. Tomorrow is the last day for our Blend BINGO. Then it was time for lunch and recess. After recess, Mrs. Myers read a silly story called, Falling For Rapunzel. It was full of quotation sentences, but the author forgot to add tags on many of them. We brainstormed a list of tag words and added them to each quotation in the story. At the end of the story, we finished a paper by adding the speaker to the correct quotation and adding quotation marks. Our quotation marks hug the part of the sentence that does NOT have the tag. Then it was writing workshop time. We reviewed Letter Ed for the parts of the letter. We wrote our first letter to our pen pal. We will be writing the final copy tomorrow to send in the mail. We also learned how an envelop is addressed. At center time, we visited our fourth center and added the decorations to our mail truck. Then it was math time. Mrs. Myers read a story called It's About Time. It was a nonfiction book filled with facts about time and clocks. We learned a lot. Then, we used the giant clock to tell time to the half hour. We learned that the minute hand points to the 6 for a half hour. That is thirty minutes around the clock. The hour hand is not pointing right at one number. It is between two numbers. The number that is smaller is our half hour. We will play with clock s tomorrow at morning meeting! We ended the day with art!