Nov
04
2011
Mrs. Clark
Miss Goshert discussing the book with the kids after the read aloud!
As if this week has not been good enough with all of our recycling fun, it got BETTER! Today we had our first mystery reader come into our classroom! I explained the concept to the kids at the beginning of the day. At 2:00 there would be someone coming into our classroom to read a story. It was going to be a surprise, but they would get 3 clues during the day to help them figure it out. It was the talk of the day! “Who was it going to be? I think it’s going to be Mr. Smith! No…it’s going to be Mrs. Williams! I don’t know! Mrs. Clark WHO IS IT?!” Our first mystery reader was Miss Goshert (a Butler friend). She came and read The House That Jack Built.
I am hoping to continue this concept of a mystery reader each week on Fridays. I feel strongly that kids should see lots of people reading, not just their teachers or close family members. EVERYONE reads! I would like to involve family members as we continue. If this is something you would be interested in please let me know! We can be flexible. You can bring a book from home (or one of your favorites) or we can give you one.
Nov
03
2011
Mrs. Clark
Report Cards came home today!! Please make sure to check the folders for them! As always, please let me know if you have any questions!
Nov
02
2011
Mrs. Clark
Olivia, Dorothy, Sophia, and Selah working on a recycling song with a few Butler friends.
Along with our wonderful Butler friends that come weekly, we have been so lucky to have a few more! A part of their education at Butler is to learn how to integrate the arts into the classroom. We are lucky enough to have a few groups of Butler students doing that with us! Today a group of the kids went with them into the hall and learned a recycling song. They then made up movements and came back to share it with the class. The song is below 🙂
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
(sing to the tune of The More We Get Together)
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
Recycle, Recycle
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle,
It’s easy to do!
‘Cause your trash
And my trash
Make up way too much trash.
Reduce, Reuse, Recycle
It’s easy to do!
Nov
02
2011
Miss Estridge
This week, we have been exploring the world of mathematics with the help of pumpkins! On Monday, I brought in four pumpkins. In the morning, students had opportunities to do observational drawings of our pumpkins. In the afternoon, we used them to explore the concept of estimation. I had each student estimate which pumpkin they thought would weigh the most. Then, after weighing all of our pumpkins, they were able to assess whether or not their estimation was correct. Next, they estimated how many pumpkin seeds were in the our pumpkins. We spent the rest of the day removing the contents of our pumpkins, which was ooey-gooey fun!
Then, on Tuesday, we used our different counting strategies to count our pumpkin seeds. We have been talking about counting by 1s, 5s, and 10s. After a class discussion, we decided that when counting a large number of objects, grouping them by 10 and counting by 10s would be the most efficient way to do that (ask your child what “efficient” means:). We then split up into groups, grouped our pumpkin seeds, and counted them!
Jaymi and Jermaine work to remove all of the "pumpkin guts" from their pumpkin.
Jamaria, Chloe, Madison, and Larry group their pumpkin seeds into groups of 10 to help count them!
Nov
01
2011
Mrs. Clark
David and Max are busy in our message center writing away!
Our kids have been writing up a storm! This week I introduced the message center to the classroom. Each kid has their own “mailbox” slot where anyone can write them letters! The kids have been really excited to write each other notes. Some of them spend their entire free choice time writing notes. (They don’t know it yet, but in a few weeks we are going to make this a school wide thing! Each classroom will have their message center in the hall so the kids can write to ANYONE! Oh my goodness they are going to be so excited!)
