100 Days of School and Counting!

On Monday, we celebrated the 100th day of school!  In the classroom, we each brought in 100 objects and made 100th day museums.  Mrs. Lincoln's class came in to check out our collections.

At the community meeting, our name was picked from the hat to help lead the next community meeting, along with Mrs. Boutin and Mrs. Lincoln's classes!  If you visit our classroom, you will see the prized puzzle piece that is handed off to each month's community meeting leader.

We had a successful Valentine's Day, complete with swapping valentines and a healthy snack celebration!

In writing, we've been focusing on the audience for our persuasive writing.  Students have written to parents, teachers, Ms. Honan, President Obama, and the police this week!

In science, students created a series of twirler wings and experimented to see which design spun the most.  Check out 3 videos HERE!

As we tidy up our room in preparation for vacation, we hope you all have a relaxing (and FUN!) vacation. 

Persuasion in Motion

Though the snow cut the week short and pushed our 100th day celebration into next week, we still had some pretty great happenings in our classroom this week.

We've moved on from how-to's to persuasive writing, and it seems that the students knew it was coming, as they are bursting as the seams with arguable ideas.  Here are just a few:

-Monkey bars for the playground
-A swimming pool in the back yard (actually, a few backyards)
-Ending pollution
-Longer recess
-A class pet
-Everyone deserves a dog

We continue to study the never-ending tricks of the English language to help us become better readers and writers.  Students searched the room with a mission: to find words that either are or are not spelled the way they sound.  Here's what they came up with:

In math, we are still working on our fact power!  Ask your child to teach you the trick for -8 and -9 subtraction facts!

In science, we continue to study motion.  Students used string and disks to create ZOOMERS.  This was one of our more difficult experiments, but the students stayed positive and kept trying (for 3 days!) to get that elusive 'zooming' sound out of their string and disk.  Check out some video HERE.  The 'Keep Trying' video was a great moment in our classroom, and totally spontaneous :).

Happy snowy weekend to all!

Goodbye January!

January flew by so fast, it left our heads spinning!  But, that was not the only thing spinning in our classroom this week.  We've started the motion portion of our science unit.  Students used straws and different sized disks to create a top that spins.   They experimented with different systems to get a top that spins the fastest and longest.  Check out some video HERE!

We celebrated the publishing of our How-To books by sharing our finished products (and all that knowledge) with the kindergarteners.  Here are just a few of the How-To topics:
-How to cheer up a baby
-How to jump rope
-How to ride a scooter
-How to brush your teeth
-How to make a hot fudge sundae
-How-to take care of a mouse
Check out the books in the hallway next week!

Next Friday is the 100th day of school!  Each child is encouraged to bring in a collection of 100 things (cheerios, beads, elastics, etc) to make a 100th Day Museum.  Mrs. Lincoln's class will come in to tour our museum and vice versa.  We're all pretty excited about it, so stay tuned for some photo documentation next week!