Thank you to everyone who came to our Authors Tea and Picnic! The kids loved getting all their compliments and signing autographs for their “fans”. It was a great day full of fun and celebration!

We had some fabulous Field Day fun today! The kids had a blast going through the stations playing fun games that required them to wheel barrel walk, crawl on their bellies, balance a ball on their head, and even look fashionable is extra large raincoats! After that we enjoyed our picnic lunch in the cafeteria and then watching Mrs. Honious get dunked in the dunk tank at recess. In the afternoon we had an entertaining assembly and then got to have some free choice activities outside to end the day. Phew, were we tired! I hope they all sleep well for you tonight! Have a great long weekend!

We had a great time last week having some unique learning experiences. First, We made pinch pots and used shells to add texture and design. Then we got to learn some hula hoop tricks, and play some fun games. Finally, we learned a little bit about the life and tools of the north east indigenous people. It was a fun for everyone to get out of the classroom and do some extra hands on learning! Thank you to everyone who makes this great event possible!

We had an amazing trip to Bushy Hill last week. The kids explored pond life from the micro organisms that can only be seen with a microscope to the very visible and lively animals that call the pond their home. First we got to see the hidden life in a drop of pond water using the bioscope. It was quite eye opening! Then we headed out to the Cedar swamp and learned how to identify some local trees and explore the swamp habitat. Finally, we headed out to the pond and used nets to catch some pond life. We found tadpoles, dragonfly nymphs, and salamanders. We all had a blast and the kids worked well together while learning and exploring. It was a great day!

We wrapped up our unit on series reading before Spring Break. Throughout the unit kids studied a specific series and learned all about its star characters and typical plot. To wrap up all this learning students created a poster that taught others about the patterns in their series and its star characters. After, they presented their series to the class to get others interested in reading it. Everyone did and amazing job! Here are some photos of their great work!

Thank you to all the parents who came to our final Family Read event. The kids had a great time and many books were enjoyed by all!

We wrapped up our Project Lead the Way States of Matter Unit last week. Over the course of the unit we learned about properties of matter such as color and texture and states of matter—solid, liquid, and gas. Students then applied this learning and used the engineer-design process to solve a real world problem. Partners had to design and create a cooler out of household materials that would keep an ice pop frozen for an hour. Every group worked hard to use their learning from the unit to create a cooler. When we tested them out each group kept the ice pop from melting completely. At the end we evaluated our work and thought about how we could make our coolers better. Finally each pair created a digital presentation of their work using the Poplet app and shared their work with the class. So much learning and so much science fun!

Pictures of our work learning about the different states of matter and testing out materials to discover conductors and insulators.

Students testing and building their cooler design. We had a blast with our hands on science!

A few snow days couldn’t stop us from celebrating reading and Dr. Seuss! This afternoon the whole school participated in a parade of books through the school hallways. Each student proudly carried one of their favorite books for the school community to see. Many students also dressed up like their favorite Dr. Seuss character. After we paraded through the halls, we met in the cafeteria to read with our school families. It was a fun afternoon and a great way to cap off our reading week!

I hope everyone enjoyed their extra long weekend last week! It was a short week back with the kids but we still managed to get in a lot of learning. We have been focusing our reading lessons on two main character concepts—character feelings and character problems. The kids have been learning how to notice and expect these story elements and then to give evidence about their thinking from the text. For example, the problem in Too Many Tamales is Maria thinks she’s lost mom’s ring because she got it stuck in the masa, so she screams “the ring” and makes her cousins eat all the tamales. They have been getting better and better explaining heir reading thinking!
In writing we worked on fine tuning our realistic fiction writing by revising. We learned that revising is adding to, moving, or removing parts of our stories. Students got to work with partners and by themselves using a checklist to revise their stories.
In math we worked on word problems using two-digit numbers and learned one more strategy for adding two digit numbers—compensation. Compensation is when mathematicians think flexibly about numbers to turn a harder problem to solve like 29+25 into a simpler problem like 30+24.
We ended our week with an amazing assembly arranged by the PTO. It was a marionette puppet show of an old Chinese folktale. We truly enjoyed the performance and had lots of questions about how it all worked. We learned a lot!

We had a great Valentine’s Day in Room 30 today! The kids were so excited to put the finishing touches on their card holders and pass out their valentines. We also did some valentines word problems, valentines writing to make cards for our families, and valentines buddy word work. It was a fun filled day.