Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Ocean fun!

We have been learning about the ocean in a cross curricular unit that involves literacy, science, and math!!  Some of our learning:


Retelling "A House for Hermit Crab"

Using our five senses to study salt.

Recording our schema.


Skip counting by 10 game...the kiddos loved this one!!

Hungry Mr. Shark subtraction and a snack!!



Making 10 game with partners.

I love this book and learning about squids!!  We made a fun squid project too!

We had a great time learning about the ocean and are still doing ocean centers :). I am hoping to do at least one more post before the end of the year to wrap things up.  Enjoy the sun!

:) Mrs. Rogers

Monday, May 12, 2014

Plants and nonfiction books

We began our unit on plants last week.  We were learning about plant parts and a plant's life cycle.  One of our favorite activities was eating a whole plant, we all tried something new!!

Our menu:
Seeds = sunflower seeds
Roots = carrots
Stem = celery
Leaves = romaine lettuce
Flower = broccoli

I'm so sorry I didn't take any pictures because we were having too much fun.  We also read the book "Tops and Bottoms" and then created our own gardens on paper plates (also no pictures, where was my mind last week?!)

We labeled our class plant and our own plants:

And read a plant story "Nibbles: A Green Tale" and learned about asking questions before we read and cause and effect!!



We also wrapped up our nonfiction Reader's Workshop unit by looking for details, comparing two nonfiction texts on the same topic, and comparing the fiction and nonfiction genres.



We will be learning about pollination and photosynthesis this week!  We will also continue doing plant themed math projects, will incorporate plant stories into reading, and start a new unit in Reader's Workshop that will teach us how to use our reading "tools"/strategies to help us figure out unknown words.

Stay dry this week!
:) Mrs. Rogers


Tuesday, May 6, 2014

Writer's Workshop: Fiction

Hi parents and teachers!

We have spent our year working through Deanna Jump's Writer's Workshop a Units and have finally reached our fiction unit!  Tomorrow, we will start writing our fiction stories.  Here's a look at the process we went through to get ready to write :)

Each kiddo first created a character, it could be anything they wanted.  They also give their character a name. (Thumb)

Next, we spent a day creating settings (Pointer finger). Our third day we developed a problem our character could face in that setting (cloud).

Today, we chose three events that would happen in our stories and decided how the character would solve the problem.

The boys and girls have worked so hard to prepare to write and I'm excited to see the stories they create!!  I can't wait to share more soon.

We have begun our plant unit and I also am going to do a post about Reader's Workshop and fractions, all while preparing for the Mother's Day Tea on Friday, whew!  Looking forward to seeing all of you!

:) Mrs. Rogers