Today we analyzed different Cinderella books from different cultures.  We worked in groups of three and rotated through several books.  Then we talked about how the setting of the stories changed the story and what remained the same.  In all of the stories we examined, the basic plot stayed the same, but there were differences in the characters and some of the events.  

We got together with our third grade buddies once again and finished watching the DisneyNature Bears movie.  We learned that being a mother bear is not easy!  Sky, the mother bear in the movie, kept her cubs safe from predators and from other things that occur in nature.  She kept them safe, taught them to find food, and took them on a long journey to find enough food to keep them from starving in the winter.  Ask me to tell you about how Sky took care of the cubs Amber and Scout.
Have a great weekend!
​Juliet

Today we read a great Cajun version of Little Red Riding Hood called Petite Rouge, by Mike Artell.  The book is told with the Cajun dialect, and I really did the best I could!  Ask me to tell you how the setting and characters are different than the traditional version.  This story has a trick in it too, like other folktales we have read. Ask me to tell you who got tricked, and how!
We also practiced writing words with long vowels in them that end with silent e.  We read a poem about a crocodile.  We learned several things you should never do to a crocodile, even if it looks like they are smiling!

Have a nice evening!
Juliet
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Today we had a visit with Mrs. Kanter.  She talked with us about the playground and the Friendship Bench.  The children learned about behaviors that encourage positive interactions outside.  We also learned that the Friendship Bench is somewhere we can sit when we don't have anyone to play with outside.  When someone sees us there, they may come over and invite us to play with them.
We read another folktale today.  We read Stone Soup, retold by Heather Forest.  In the story, two weary travelers stop at homes in a lovely town to ask for a small bite of food, but everyone in the town says they have no food.  The two travelers stand on the edge of a well and talk in loud voices to be heard by others.  They say that if in this elegant little town there is no food, they should share their magical stone soup.  But they need a big black iron pot to make their food.  Ask me to tell you how the travelers tricked the people in the town into giving them food.  In the end the townspeople find out the soup did have a magical ingredient, but it wasn't the stone.  Ask me to tell you what the magical ingredient was!
Today in math we learned about a new symbol.  We learned about the greater than and less than symbol.  We practiced writing number sentences to compare amounts using the symbol.  We have a good way to remember which way the symbol goes in the equation to show greater or less than.  Ask me to tell you how I know which way the larger end of the symbol goes between the numbers.
Here's a little reminder!
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Today we read and talked more about how we can take care of our home, the Earth.  It is so exciting to  hear what families are doing already.  Two big ideas came out of our discussion and reading today.  We talked about reducing.  Ask me to tell you what the word reduce means.  We know that we can be more careful about what we buy and think about if we really need to have it.  We also talked about animals, and how what humans do effects the lives and survival of animals.  We read the book, Hey, Get Off of My Train, by John Burningham.  This book was about a little boy who takes an imaginary train ride through different parts of the world. Animals beg to get on the train because their survival is being threatened.  Ask me to tell you about the animals and why they were getting on the train.  
We wrote to tell about what we love about our Earth today, what we already do to help take care of our Earth, and what we can do to be even better stewards of Earth.  We are working hard to make our writing easy for others to read.  We talked about making sure as we work, we focus on using capital letters at the beginning of sentences, using punctuation and spaces between words, and making our writing and illustrations easy for our reader to understand.  
We read The Three Little Pigs today.  This version is a little different from the traditional version, but the ending is the same.  We know folk tales have someone being tricked in them.  Ask me to tell you how the third little pig tricked the wolf in this story.

Don't forget, tomorrow is Election Day and we do not have school.  I was reminded several times as I forgot and said tomorrow we will do this or that, but I will remember tomorrow morning!

Have a nice evening!
Juliet

Today we had a great time with our third grade buddies from Ms. Wang's class.  We watched about half of the DisneyNature movie Bears.  This is a movie that chronicles the first year of life of two brown bear cubs in Alaska.  Ask me to tell you the names of the bear cubs.  DisneyNature movies are filmed with no intervention of what is happening to the animals, so a couple parts today may have been a little scary, but I had reassured the children before the movie that the cubs are fine in the end of the movie.  The bear cubs are actually born in a reserve so there are some very close up pictures of the cubs when they are quite tiny.  After they leave their den in the reserve, they have to cross the snowy mountains to go to areas where there is food.  Ask me to tell what things the bears ate.  Here are some facts we are learning more about in the movie.  

And a little something to smile about!

Have a great weekend!
​Juliet

Today we listened to a Japanese folktale called The Badger and the Magic Fan by Tony Johnston.  This folktale is about a magic fan that makes noses grow and shrink.  Tengu children are in the story too, which are goblin-like creatures with large red noses who usually carry fans.  A naughty badger comes along and tricks the tengu children so he can get their fan.  Ask me to tell you what the badger did to trick the children.  After the badger gets the fan, he waves it over a sleeping beautiful lady, whose nose grows very, very long.  Ask me to tell you how the story ends.  We were great Word Birds, using many of the strategies we have been learning about to understand new words that make the text tricky.  Ask me to tell you the meaning of vexed.  Before we went home today, we reread the story and stopped along the way to name opposite words to many of the verbs in the story.  

​Today we took notes from information texts about the animals we are researching. I was amazed to watch how focused students were as they studied the photographs and read parts of the book to find information to fill in their charts with information to use in their book.

Have a nice evening!
Juliet

Today we began a unit of study about folktales and fairy tales.  We passed The Talking Fish and shared our favorite fairy tales.  This was so interesting!  There were many misconceptions about what a fairy tale is, and many children did not have a favorite.  Not to worry!  We will be reading many folktales and fairy tales over the next few weeks.  Today we read a traditional version of The Three Billy Goats Gruff by Paul Galdone.  The we read a story called The Three Billy Goats Fluff, by Rachael Mortimer.  This story had the same characters and plot, but with a few twists.  The Billy Goat Fluff brothers' mother is in this story.  We noticed she felt empathy for the troll who lived under the bridge.  She too had trouble sleeping, but not because billy goats' hooves are loud when they cross the bridge, but because her billy goat children kept waking her up at night.  Ask me to tell you the creative way the billy goats mother solved the problem for the troll!
We continue to check in on the eaglets from time to time.  They are getting really big and changing so much from those two little balls of gray puff we first watched. We talked with a buddy about how they have changed.  We noticed their talons are getting very big, dark feathers are coming in all over their bodies, their beaks are darker and bigger, and they are moving around much more.  Their parents leave them in the nest alone more, and the eaglets are getting very curious.  We have noticed them up against the nest railings looking out sometimes.  They still are babies though.  We notice that as soon as they are done eating, they fall asleep.  
Today we voted on which names we think are best for the eaglets.  People sent in suggestions for their names and now people can vote to help choose their names. Here is the data on our voting.  Ask me to tell you about this graph.

If your family would like to vote to name the eaglets, you can visit ​https://www.facebook.com/FONArboretum/app/303561899745219?brandloc=DISABLE&app_data=chk-

Have a nice evening!
​Juliet
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Today we started talking about Earth Day.  We studied some beautiful photographs of coral reef, then we watched this video about how the coral is dying because of the impact of humans on our Earth.  We will be talking about how the choices we make every day have an impact on the Earth, animals, plants and us.  

In Writing Workshop, we looked through the animal resources we have in our room. We chose topics for our animal reports we will be working on over the next week.

Have a nice evening!
​Juliet

We started our day off with a great assembly.  Dr. Recess came to teach the kids new games for recess.  He followed up by staying for recess to help kids with the games he taught.  Ask me to tell you about the games I learned and which one is my favorite.  

We read a story today with multiple meanings called Yaks Yak: Animal Word Pairs, by Linda Sue Park.  This story is beautifully illustrated with whimsical pictures depicting the animals acting out the verb made from their name.  Each page also had the definition of the verb, so since no one in the class knew what it meant to yak, we had the definition in the book, as well as a childhood story from me because my dad said that word all the time!
In math, we worked in math stations playing games to practice addition and subtraction, as well as learning a game to practice knowing what two numbers together make ten.  
I forgot to send out reminders for field trip permission slips, so tomorrow please check your child's folder and see if you have a permission slip and/or money to send in for our trip.  

Enjoy the beautiful warm weather!
​Juliet  

We had a nice visit with Mrs. Kanter this morning.  We talked about Stop, Think and Do.  This is a strategy to use when making choices.  We stop, think about good and bad choices, then choose the right one.  Ask me to show you the paper I brought home that shows a choice I made recently.
We visited the Science Fair today.  We were very impressed that four children in our class participated, and that two even collaborated with a partner on their project!  We had our scientists tell about their project.  I was so impressed with their description of their projects, and their classmates were excited to hear about what they did.  I know this is something extra to already busy schedules, but I am glad we four students participate!

Today we read Tops and Bottoms, by Janet Stevens.  This story is about a lazy bear and a tricky hare.  We talked about character traits as well as the choices and consequences that Bear made.  Ask me to tell you about how Hare tricked Bear.  We also came across an unexpected multiple meaning word.  We were talking about how the choices Bear made helped Hare make a good profit.  While I was pretty sure most students would not understand the word profit, I asked.  The answer I got was for the word prophet.  "A prophet is kind of like a god in our religion" was the answer I got!

Have a nice evening!
​Juliet