Tuesday, November 23, 2010

Adopt a Soldier

Thank you for all of the donations so far for our soldier! We need all items brought to school by December 1!
We have received a lot of food/snack items. The following are the items that we could still use to send in our care package:

Toothbrush
Mouthwash
AAA batteries
Bar soap (for a man)
Men's shampoo (travel size)
Wet wipes (for hand and face)

Thanks for all of your support!

Tuesday, November 23, 2010

In Math we continued to work on multiplication. We used arrays to help us solve multiplication problems.

We had our popcorn party today to celebrate meeting (and exceeding) our reading goal of 8,000 minutes in 2 weeks! We also watched the movie American Legends to finish our Tall Tale unit.

Today we had PE, Art, and our November Citizenship Assembly.

Friday, November 19, 2010

Friday, November 19, 2010

Thanks to all of the parents, grandparents, and siblings who came to our Readers' Theatre performances today! We are so glad we could share our hard work with all of you! If you didn't make it, we videotaped it and we will get it to you as soon as possible.

We played Multiplication Baseball in Math today. We rolled the dice to create and practice our multiplication facts.

Abby, Madi, and Emma performed Read-Alouds about their country today. We learned that there are more than 80 million people who live in Mexico and we learned about some of the history of Germany, thanks to our readers.

We had our spelling test. The students who missed words will be able to retake the test next week as we will not have a new set of words. They will be bringing home the words this weekend to practice for next week's test.

Today we had Spanish, PE, and Art.

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Thursday, November 18, 2010

Today in Math, we continued to work on fact families. We worked in pairs to create and solve fact family problems using fact family triangles.

We performed our Johnny Appleseed and Paul Bunyan Readers' Theatres for the kindergarten and first grade classes. Don't forget our performances tomorrow at 10:00 a.m. and 1:15 p.m.

We had a read aloud today about families in Mexico. We found out that the average Mexican family is 6-10 people and that Mexican women usually live with their parents until they get married. Many Mexican families include multiple generations.

We continued to practice our spelling words and search for words that had sh, ch, and th in them. We will have our test tomorrow.

Today we had Spanish, PE, Library, and Music.

Wednesday, November 17, 2010

Wednesday November 17, 2010

Today we learned about multiplication and division fact families. We were given numbers and had to create fact families about those numbers.

Madi, JaShon, and Sabine performed read alouds for the class on the countries they are studying. We learned some very interesting information from them as well as through our research we are doing in books and on the internet.

We read our tall tales today and started writing our descriptive paragraphs about our tall tale character. We also practiced our tall tales readers' theaters. We hope you can attend one of our performances on Friday.

We are going to adopt a soldier and collect items to send to him for Christmas. These items are due by December 1.

We had Spanish, PE, and Guidance today.

Pecos Bill Descriptive Writing Paragraphs

Pecos Bill
by Madi, JaShon & Sam

Pecos Bill was known for being the world's greatest cowboy. He had red hair and brown eyes. He was burly. He was very thoughtful. He loves nature. He was always happy. He was tall. And, when you saw him, he was as fast as a Blue jay.


Pecos Bill
by Sabine, Josie, Ava & Collin

Pecos Bill was known as a famous cowboy. He was a loud cowboy. Some people say he's handsome, strong, brave, and smart. When Pecos Bill lassos cattle he looked like lightning.


Pecos Bill
by Ian, Abby & Julia

Pecos Bill was a great cowboy. He was very strong and muscular. Pecos Bill had red hair. He was also very fast and tough. You'd think Pecos Bill was a mustang when he was running around Texas!

Monday, November 15, 2010

Adopt a Soldier

We are going to adopt a soldier currently serving in Afghanistan this school year. We will write him letters and send him a care package for Christmas. I hope you will help us with this project. Here are some of the items that we will be collecting for the care package:

Granola Bars
Hard Candy (individually wrapped in bag)
Licorice
Gummy bears/worms
Sour Patch Kids
Red Hots
Sunflower seeds
Microwave popcorn
Peanuts/mixed nuts
Corn nuts
Beef Jerky
Toothbrush
Toothpaste
Mouthwash
AAA batteries
Bar soap (for a man)
Men's shampoo (travel size)
Tissues (individual packs, travel size)
Wet wipes (for hand and face)

If you would like to help donate to the care package, please send the items to school by Wednesday, December 1. Thanks for your help!

Monday, November 15, 2010

Happy 9th birthday Madi! Thanks for bringing cupcakes for the class!

Today we had our spelling pre-test. This week's words each contain two letters that make one sound: sh, ch, th, wr, and ck. We will have our test on Friday.

In Math we worked on multiplication and division. We related them to addition and subtraction as we solved several problems together and independently.

We read the story Davy Crockett Saves the World and learned 5 new vocabulary words: concoction, sauntered, commence, singed, and discombobulated. We also started reading our chosen tall tales and listed vocabulary words we wanted to learn more about. The students chose from the following tall tales: Mike Fink, Paula Bunyan, Sally Ann Thunder Whirlwind Crockett, John Henry, and Library Lil.

We received another Flat Stanley today! This Flat Stanley traveled all of the way to Santa Cruz, California and back! So far, Flat Stanley has traveled 13,498 miles!

Sunday, November 14, 2010

Reader's Theater

This weekend your child brought home his/her Reader's Theater script to practice. Please remind him/her to return it to school. We will be putting on a performance this Friday afternoon at 1:15. All are welcome to attend this performance!

Friday, November 12, 2010

Friday, November 12, 2010

We finished our ITBS testing today!!

We began learning about three of the countries that Flat Stanley is visiting/has visited. The students chose the country they wanted to learn and research about. The students will be presenting information to the rest of the class through read alouds, writing paragraphs, and giving a presentation at the end of the unit.

Germany: Madi, JaShon, Abby, and Ian
Japan: Sabine, Collin, Ava, and Josie
Mexico: Julia, Sam, and Emma

This afternoon we wrote descriptive paragraphs about Pecos Bill in small groups. Next week we will write our own paragraphs about the tall tale character we have chosen to study.

We are no longer bringing home reading logs to record our daily reading time. Instead, the students will be entering this information on the wiki. This will allow students to be able to share what they're reading with each other as well as reduce the amount of paper being used. Below is the link to the wiki:

http://mrsgriswoldsreaders.wikispaces.com/

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Today we completed the Usage & Expression and Social Studies sections of the ITBS test. We will finish tomorrow with Maps & Diagrams.

We practiced our vocabulary words in pairs with a memory matching game.

We added up our reading total for the week: we read for 5,479 minutes!! We surpassed our goal of 4000 minutes in one week!

We had an assembly to thank Mr. Jacobson for his gift to UNI. We made a High-Five Gauntlet to escort him out of the building.

Today we had Spanish, PE, and Library.

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Wednesday, November 10, 2010

Today we completed the Math Problem Solving, Punctuation, and Vocabulary ITBS tests! We are looking forward to being finished with these tests soon! Thanks to Josie and Sam for our snacks today!

We brainstormed a list of questions we want to know about the three cultures that we will learn about: Mexico, Japan, and Germany. These are three of the places that Flat Stanley has visited and we are looking forward to finding the similarities and differences of these cultures.

We continued to work on descriptive writing today. We read a descriptive paragraph about Ichabod Crane from the Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Mrs. Griswold shared a paragraph she wrote about Paul Bunyan. As a group we came up with physical traits about Johnny Appleseed as we will write a descriptive paragraph about him tomorrow.
Some students worked on our vocabulary words while others were reading to self. We also practiced our Paul Bunyan Readers' Theater.

We had Spanish, PE, and Guidance today.

Flat Stanley Arrives!

We have received 2 Flat Stanley's back from his adventures! Flat Stanley visited Germany and Clear Lake, Iowa on his first two visits. We enjoyed learning about his adventures and about those locations. So far Flat Stanley has traveled 4510 miles! We can't wait to find out where he's traveled next!

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Tuesday, November 9, 2010

Today we completed the Math Concepts and Estimation, Spelling, Capitalization, and Science sections of the ITBS test. We enjoyed snacks from Ava and Julia today.

We practiced our vocabulary words today. We worked in pairs to come up with examples and situations of each vocabulary word.

In our small groups we are reading A to Z Mysteries Sleepy Hollow Sleepover and The Headless Horseman. We also practiced our Johnny Appleseed Readers' Theater and partner read Pecos Bill. We also Read to Self for over 35 minutes!

We had Expressive Arts, PE, and Art today. In Art, we created Pecos Bill.

Monday, November 8, 2010

Monday, November 8, 2010

Today we started our ITBS testing. We completed the Reading Comprehension and Math Computation tests today. We have no spelling this week due to our ITBS testing.

We learned 6 new vocabulary words today from our story Pecos Bill. This week's words are recruit, admiration, perpetual, proposal, descent, and careen.

The Paul Bunyan Reader's Theater group practiced their Reader's Theater during our reading time today.

We had Spanish, Health, and Music today.

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Wednesday, November 3, 2010

Today we began working on multiplication. We read the story Anno's Magic Seeds to help us understand the concept of multiples. We created our own examples of using multiples of equal groups (groups of 2) to solve multiplication problems. Some of the multiplication number sentences created were 9x2, 10x2, 11x2, 17x2, and 25x2. We discovered the connection between doubles in addition and these multiplication problems.
We worked on our vocabulary words: murmur, burden, summon, impressive, surged, and valiant. We also created vocabulary puzzles and crossword puzzles using any of our vocabulary words from this school year.
Here are two websites that we are using to create crossword puzzles using our vocabulary words:
http://www.puzzle-maker.com/CW/
http://puzzlemaker.discoveryeducation.com/

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

Tuesday, November 2, 2010

In Math, we used our room measurements to calculate the perimeter and area of the rooms. We remembered that we needed to add to find the perimeter and multiply to find the area. We also measured the perimeter of our classroom using tape measures. It was 1,419 inches!
We used our spelling word patterns of -ow and -oa to find as many words as possible that had those spelling patterns in them. We found 30 words with the -ow pattern/sound and 18 words with the -oa pattern/sound. We are continuing to search for these words as we read to self.
We had Expressive Arts today. We are learning about Northwest Indians, Tall Tales, and Astronomy during our Expressive Arts time.
We created our own ending to the Legend of Sleepy Hollow explaining what happened to Ichabod Crane. We also partner-read the Legend of Sleepy Hollow. We met in small groups to read either The Headless Horseman or the Sleepy Hollow Sleepover. We are finding the similarities and differences in the stories as we complete a Venn Diagram to compare and contrast the stories.
We had a great day!

Monday, November 1, 2010

Monday, November 1, 2010

Today was a random day! All students returning reading logs received a treat!

This morning we played a math game in which we had to find a partner and add together our amount of candy collected. We also worked in groups of threes to add the totals. This was a fun way to add multi-digit numbers as well as practice addition with 3 or more addends.

We had our Halloween party today! We played Halloween Bingo and won prizes! We had a contest to see how many words we could create from Halloween words. Thanks to JaShon and Ava for bringing yummy treats!

(Ideas submitted for this post by the students in Mrs. Griswold's class)