Measuring, Maps and Giles Andreae!

We are using our feet as a unit of measurement:)

Measuring with baby feet!

Creating a display for our results...

Very busy mathematicians:)

Chocolate has been very busy visiting her friend's homes each weekend.  Thank you for being a volunteer:)

We are helping the pirates...While learning about maps, we created our own treasure maps!  This week we will be creating salt maps of Vermont.

Hopefully last week will be the last time we have indoor recess for awhile:)  We were very creative with each other while having to stay inside.

This week we will be moving on to Unit 7 of Fundations where we will be learning about glued sounds.  The glued sound this week and next will include ang, ing, ong, ung, ank, ink, onk, and unk.  Try to brainstorm some words with these glued sounds with your student:)

In Investigations (Math), we will continue our journey of measuring as we learn to measure animal jumps!  Maybe you can use different units of measure at home to see how far family members can jump.  We are all animals too!!!

Our author study this week will be Giles Andreae and we will continue developing our skills of identifying character traits and elements of a story.  Just as a reminder, character traits are the words that describe a characters' actions, thoughts, and motivations.  If you were to think of some character traits to describe your student, what would you say?  See if your student can do the same for you...

During Writer's Workshop, we will use collections we have in our classroom and "judge" these collections to identify the winner.  One of the collections we have been using recently is a collection of mugs.  We decided we will use design, texture, and function as our criteria for judging.  These writing adventures help us further develop our ability to form opinions and support them with evidence.  

Today we will be cross country skiing!  Wish us luck:)  Enjoy your week and thank you for being such amazing parents! 

Author Study, Characters and Elements of a Story!

Some of our most recent focuses were characters and story elements.  As we were studying Leo Lionni, we analyzed his books and collaborated in small groups to summarize each element.  After reading four of his books this is what we discovered!

Next week, our author study focus will be Mo Willems!  Mo Willems will provide a variety of mentor texts for our continued exploration of opinion writing.  If anyone has any Mo Willems books at home, it would be great to bring them in to share with the class.  

As part of our theme, we are learning about geography and with this, we are focusing on community. We are learning that we are part of many different communities and each community is part of the geography that surrounds us. We are the yellow spot in the middle of the clay creation, from there we will be exploring each layer, school (red), home (green), Waterbury (blue), Vermont (white), United States (grey), North America (brown), and the Earth (orange) which is not added yet.

A blending community:)

We are just one small piece of the many communities we belong to! 

Chocolate Characters or Chocolate and Characters?

Here is Chocolate one of the two new members of our classroom!  She has been getting acquainted with her new cage and explorer ball.  She is very active on her wheel and loves to sleep!

We created a get well card for Ms. Amy:)  We have heard she had a successful surgery and is doing well.  Hopefully our oversized card will continue to help her recover quickly!

Here is our analysis of Molly Lou Melon during our character exploration.

Meet Miss Livingston and Chocolate!

 Miss Livingston has been doing a wonderful job working in our classroom and getting to know all of our names, class routines and schedules. We are so excited to have her in our classroom!

Meet Chocolate, our new class pet! Chocolate is welcome to go home on weekends with children. Send in a note if you are interested - we will set up a schedule for Chocolate's weekend adventures!