Gingerbread houses in Art

Our week didn't get off to a normal start with a delay due to snow. However, the class was treated to an extra Art class with Mrs. White Monday morning to work on their 3-D gingerbread houses. I'm sure you love the finished products they brought home!

Ordinal numbers and positional words

We began a new chapter in math on ordinal numbers and positional words. Today we began talking about left, right, between, before and after. You can reinforce these concepts and vocabulary at home, along with ordinal numbers (first through tenth) in everyday situations. Here are a few pictures of the students explaining where objects on their desk are in relation to each other.

Building structures with 3-D shapes

Yesterday we worked with 3-D shapes to build structures using our knowledge of what stacks, slides and rolls. Look for more pictures coming soon...

Blending Lines

Each day after a new sound spelling is introduced, we practice and apply the skill by decoding words that contain the sound spelling pattern. I write the word, we read the word sound by sound and then blend it back together. Someone also helps us to understand the word by using it in a sentence. At the end of each line (4 words) a "risk taker" reads the words to the class, before leading the class in reading these words.

Here's a snapshot of today's blending lines (we learned the sound of w_ and the sound of wh_) with a risk taker reading the words to the class.

/th/ sound hunt

Before Thanksgiving we learned the sound of -th- and went on a hunt around the room. We were looking for the sound at the beginning of words, and at the end of words. Some students even found the sound in the middle of words! This job required a lot of reading and thinking about where to find words in the room. As usual the students went above and beyond, finding even more than I expected!

Wild turkeys

Today when I went to pick up the class from Art I found a whole bunch of wild turkeys! We enjoyed our snack anyway. :)

Veteran's Day presentation

Here are a few pictures (from my seat running the show I had a poor camera angle to catch more!) from our USA symbols presentation at the Veterans Day assembly last week. The kids did an amazing job!!!

Statue of Liberty painting

Last week we were finishing up our Statue of Liberty paintings. We started them in Art with Mrs. White. Because of the storm and Halloween we missed Art to finish them so they would be ready for Veterans Day. So on Friday everyone painted a sky behind Lady Liberty. Some skies were blue, some stormy, some dark night skies, and others depict sunrise or sunset. No two alike!
A CD of patriot songs was playing while we worked and I loved hearing the kids sing along! A couple of these paintings will be highlighted in our presentation on Friday and all will be on display outside of the classroom when you come for conferences tomorrow!

Habitat research

Last week students worked with a partner to research a habitat. They needed to learn about plants an animals that can be found in the habitat, along with weather. Then they set to work to draw the habitat for our concept and question board.

Fall Festival

Today we had our annual Fall Festival at Underhill which was a big hit! We had outdoor activities (relays and ring toss---which I didn't have the camera for), singing and dancing in the gym, mural painting (pumpkins), and face/hand painting in the library. All of this was followed by a snack in the classroom---a BIG THANK YOU to all the volunteers that made this possible along with the PTA for coordinating donations and delivery of the snacks.