Week of October 19-23, 2009

This week we chose stories to publish during Writer's Workshop and prepared for our Publishing Party on Monday. In Reader's Workshop we learned how to choose "Just Right Books." Ask your child about the Five-Finger Rule. In Science we set up our Interactive Notebooks so we can record all of our observations and experiments that we have been doing. Some of our grapes did turn into raisins. Check with your scientist to find out which experiment made them change the fastest. We also set up our Worm Farm with the help of Ms. Hansen's 4th graders. In math we continue to practice writing number stories and finding different combinations for the same number. We also flipped a coin and recorded how many times it landed on heads and tails to practice writing tally marks and to talk about probability.

Publishing Party

We spent the week getting one of our stories that we've been writing during Writer's Workshop ready for publication. We made a cover for our story and included information about the author. WE practiced reading our stories to each other on Friday so we are ready to share with the whole class on Monday. Parents will be invited to our future Publishing Parties.

Worm Farm

Ms. Hansen's 4th graders helped us set up a habitat for a worm farm this week. We tore newspaper for the bedding, learned about what foods worms can and cannot eat; learned how to weigh the food we give to the worms and got some worms to start our own farm. We will observe the worm farm as it grows and changes throughout the year. The worm castings will be good for our classroom garden!

Ms. Fitzpatrick Visits

Ms. Fitzpatrick, one of our guidance counselors, visited our classroom to talk about how she can help students if they are feeling sad, angry or worried. She introduced us to several of her friends who will help us talk about our feelings and we heard a story that helped us discuss "The Golden Rule." Ms. Fitzpatrick will be visiting us periodically throughout the year.

Week of October 5 - 16, 2009

Since we had Parent-Teacher Conferences at the end of last week, here's an update of our last week and a half. In Writer's Workshop w have been reviewing how to write the uppercase letters. We have also learned to stretch out our words and ideas in our stories. We added words to our Word Wall in the classroom and have our own Word Walls in our writing folders. In Reader's Workshop we wrapped up our author's study of Leo Lionni by finishing our masks of our favorite character in his stories. This was the first week for Word Study as part of our homework and our first spelling assessment. In math, we have been using number stories to help us with addition and subtraction skills in addition to some new games and workbook pages. We learned "The Peacemaker's Song" and met Princess Mary and Wizard George who are helping us learn about appropriate ways to handle our conflicts.

Yoga

On Friday afternoon, a friend of one of our classmates shared her love and knowledge of yoga with us. We did traditional poses like frog, tree, cat and dog. We also learned some breathing exercises and massages to help us calm down and re-energize. Ahhhh . . . .

Indoor Recess

With all the rain we had last week, we had three days of indoor recess. We enjoyed creating things with legos, pattern blocks and dominoes. We can also choose to play games, draw pictures and read books during indoor recess.

Courtyard Exploration with our 5th Grade Buddies

We used our five senses to explore our courtyard with our buddies. In small groups, we recorded what we smell, hear, see, feel and we imagined what we could taste. We particularly enjoyed the herbs in the 5th graders garden. The lavender was a favorite!

Adventures with Croaky

Croaky has been a part of Ms. Runkle's classroom since she started teaching ten years ago! He goes home with a classmate each Friday and spends the weekend with him or her and comes back to the classroom on Mondays and we get to hear what fun they had over the weekend. Croaky has been to many places over the years such as Disney World, San Francisco, New York City, a Nationals Baseball game, trick-or-treating, and to the ice cream parlor (he loves chocolate ice cream with flies!) He also enjoys just hanging out around the house and watching cartoons and eating pizza. Every child gets a turn with Croaky during the school year.

Gourd Study

We continued our study of what scientists do by observing and recording six different gourds. Each table had thier own gourd and described it using pictures and words. Later, we switched papers to see if we could figure out which gourd our fellow scientists had recorded. We learned that the more specific we were in our descriptions, the easier it was for our friends to know which gourd we studied.

Week of September 28 - October 2

This week we practiced our first Word Sort. We used a fairly easy one so everyone could get used to the routine. We also started Homework! We had two school-wide events were fun to attend: our first all-school morning meeting on Wednesday and the Teatro de Luna's dramatic performance about Abraham Lincoln on Thursday.

What is a Scientist?

We started our science unit, "What is a Scientist?" and learned the different things that scientists do. We are focusing on the concepts of observing, recording and hypothesizing. We also learned that scientists make LOTS of mistakes. Did you know that chocolate chip cookies, raisins, velcro and post-it notes were all mistakes? We set up an experiment in the classroom to see what will make a grape turn to a raisin the fastest. The different conditions we came up with were placing grapes in a sunny window, the shade, in water, paint and soap. We will be observing and recording the changes that take place over the next few weeks.

Estimation Jar

Each Friday (or last day of the week if it's a holiday) a student will bring the Estimation Jar home and fill it with 1 -100 of the same things. The student brings the jar back to school on Monday (or next school day if it is a holiday) and the rest of the class has the whole week to guess how many things are in the jar. We count them on Friday and the jar goes home with another student. Every child will get a turn!