Ask Me About Friday, May 20, 2016

Today we started our day wondering about this extraordinary photograph from National Geographic.  We studied the photograph and had many questions.  I told the children it was called Krishna’s Butter Ball, and one of our students told us the story of Krishna's butter.  The students wrote down the questions they had, working carefully to include spaces between words, an upper case letter at the beginning of their sentence, an attempt at punctuation, and their best try spelling unknown words. Ask me to tell you what I was wondering when I studied this photograph.

We read the story Big Bear Hug, by Nicholas Oldland.  This book is about a bear who loves to give bear hugs, especially to trees.  One day, a man comes into the forest to chop down a very tall, special tree.  The bear runs to the man and is about to bite him, but instead he stops.  We thought about what the bear could do next.  We made a connection to Stop, Think and Do and discussed the options to decide whether they were good choices or not.  You will be happy to know the bear gives the man a big bear hug instead of biting him, but still. the man runs away.  We thoroughly enjoyed this story!
We worked with words with silent e today.  We read this poem by Eve Merriam called How to Eat a Poem then looked for words with silent e. 
                                How To Eat A Poem
Don't be polite.
Bite in.
Pick it up and eat the juice that may run down your chin.
It is ready and ripe now whenever you are.
You do not need a knife or fork or spoon
or plate or napkin or tablecloth
For there is no core
or stem
or rind
or pit
or seed
to throw away. 

We enjoyed this song about silent e.
We read a story called The Tree Lady by H. Joseph Hopkins.  This story is about Katharine Olivia Sessions who brought trees to San Diego.  Ask me why there were no trees in San Diego when Kate moved there.  

Another eaglet update!  The eaglets branched this week, which means they went up on one of the branches instead of staying in the nest. The mother eagle had dinner up there which maybe coaxed the eaglets up there.  They are on the railings of the nest often.  Every time we see the eaglets spread their wings, we are amazed.  They are enormous, and the eaglets are getting used to them.  They are flapping them and soon will be hovering.  Check them out if you haven't!  dceaglecam.eagles.org
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Have a nice weekend!
Juliet