Everyone had lots of great Thanksgiving stories to tell today!  It sounds like everyone had a wonderful Thanksgiving.
Today we thought about some of the landforms we have been learning about the past few weeks.  We thought about some of the recreational activities that occur on these landforms, and we collected data to find out which activities our classmates would rather do.  Everyone was able to vote one time.  Below is our data.  Ask me to tell you what we found out in looking at our data.  

Today we continued to learn about seeds.  We used hand lenses and got an up close look at several different fruits, vegetables and their seeds.  Ask me to tell you what I noticed about the seeds I studied today.  

We played a fun game of Calendar Bingo today using what we know about numbers.  We tried to get four counters in a row for a Bingo.  We listened to find out what the number was based on clues such as "the number is one more than 14."  

Have a peaceful evening!
​Juliet

We are very excited about Thanksgiving!  We have read several books about being thankful, and today everyone is bringing home a book about Splat the Cat.  This is a beautiful book that is not just for Thanksgiving, but for everyday.  It illustrates the kindness and support friends share with each other.  Ask me to tell you who my Seymour is and why.  The children can keep this book.  I hope you find time to read it sometime over the long weekend.  It's really a sweet book!
We went on a couple more virtual field trips the past two days.  We went looking for landforms in Alaska and Hawaii..  We made a list of landforms we saw and learned about sea stacks, hoodoos and how mountains are formed with Billy Blue Hair.  Ask me to tell you about the landforms I saw in Alaska and Hawaii.  Here are the virtual field trips we took in case you need to get away a bit on this long weekend

We changed the words of the familiar campsong "I Love the Mountains" to include landforms we saw on our fieldtrips.  We clapped the syllables in the list of landforms we had made and used it to tranform the song.  Ask me to sing the song with you.  Here are the words, just in case the copies I made don't make it home!

Enjoy the holiday!  I hope you find time to relax and enjoy your time with your families and friends.
​Juliet

Today was a busy day.  We visited with our school counselor, Mrs. Kanter and learned about DeBug.  Ask me to show you the paper I brought home with the steps of DeBug.  Ask me to tell you what I can do when someone bugs me.  We know that if someone is just annoying us, but not physically hurting us, we can probably solve the problem on our own.  We know that if someone is physically hurting us, we need to get adult help right away!
We also took a littlle "field trip" to the western states to learn more about landforms.  We learned about one of the major ways landforms are made.  Ask me to tell you what water, wind and ice do to change the land and make landforms.  We know you will enjoy this little trip too, so the video is right here!  Enjoy!

In Writing Workshop, we worked on finishing our Thanksgiving writing.  We reread what we started on Friday and added to our writing and illustrations.  We checked to see if we started our sentences with a capital letter and if we ended our sentences with punctuation.  Tomorrow we will work with Miss Wolfe to check the spelling of our word wall words and to see that the words that we did not know how to spell just like that showed our best try.

Just a reminder that we will go outside on cold days.  Please be sure your child has a warm coat to wear outside.  We also have several children who are struggling to put their coat on and zip it independently.  Please have them practice at home if your child is still working on this.  On cold days, I don't let the kids out until their coat is on and zipped.  

Have a great evening!
​Juliet 

Today we began a short unit of study about bullying.  We began by sharing what we thought was bullying behavior.  We noticed the list was almost all verbs especially, physical actions that hurt.  We discussed that all unkind behavior is not bullying.  We thought about the word conflict, and looked at a short clip from Sesame Street with Robin Williams and The Two Headed Monster acting out the word conflict.  Here it is:  

Then we learned about bullying behavior and compared it "normal" conflict.  Here is our chart we used

We talked about different scenarios and determined what was bullying and what was "normal" conflicts that most people have from time to time.  We used a checklist to help remember just what bullying behavior is before we decided.  We also read a great story by Nancy Carlson called Henry and the Bully which had a very nice ending with Henry understanding the girl who was bullying him and he made an effort to be friends with her.

​Ask me about what I learned about bullying behavior today.  
We will continue with our discussion of bullying over the next few school days.  

Have a nice evening!
​Juliet

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Today we analyzed this photo to get a better understanding of the differences between mountains and hills.  We watched a video that introduced different landforms.  Ask me to name three landforms.  
We also learned a new routine today.  We learned about independent reading.  During independent reading, readers choose three books from "Just Right" baskets that they read.  They find a quiet place to read their books without talking to children around them.  They read these books the whole time, so they don't get up and choose new books.  The purpose of independent reading is to focus on reading the whole time.  We use books that are "just right" so they can practice reading fluently, without stopping to decode unknown words.  They read the whole time to build stamina, so they can stay focused and read the whole time.  Reading is hard work!  Children's eyes have to learn to scan across the sentence and follow the lines down the page.  This becomes more difficult and tiring as they begin to read longer books.  The children enjoy making choices in the books the read as some are books they have read in their reading group, and some that are books that are new to them.
We listened to a wonderful story today by Mo Willems.  We read Knuffle Bunny, which is a story about a little girl who loses her stuffed bunny at the laundromat.  Because she is not yet talking, she communicates this through loud sounds and eventually goes "boneless" to let her dad know something is wrong.  He doesn't figure it out, but mom knows what is wrong as soon as they hit the front door!  We thought about what made this story so enjoyable so that we could make our stories more interesting to read.  Ask me why Knuffle Bunny was such a great story to listen to!  In our writing today, we wrote about personal experiences and how putting in our feelings made the story more interesting.  I wrote a story that quite honestly I don't probably remember, but have heard the story told so many times that I do remember it!  I shared a story about being excited to go to a play of The Wizard of Oz with my dad, but then how I got scared when the Cowardly Lion ran up the aisle near where we were sitting.  We will continue to use Mo Willems as an author to study to help improve our writing!

Have a nice evening!
​Juliet 

Today we looked at a very interesting landform called a butte.  Then we worked with our table groups to think fluently to come up with ideas other landforms.  We were taking intellectual risks because we had not yet come up with a definition for a landform.  Each group had a recorder who wrote down the ideas.  We will work more with looking at pictures of landforms and then come up with a definition.

Today students are bringing home a sheet of postcards they made.  These are part of our Postcard Project.  I forgot to hand out the homework sheets I ran off this week because there were so many directions for a math game and for the Postcard Project.  You can find the homework on our homepage as usual, but I will send home the homework sheet tomorrow.  Sorry about that!

Have a nice evening!
Juliet
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Today we learned about taking intellectual risks.  That sounds really big and scary, but we found out we've been doing that all year.  We take intellectual risks when we ask questions to understand, share our thinking, answer questions and share ideas even when we are unsure, and challenge ourselves to move to the next level.  We took an intellectual risk when we studied pictures to try and guess what they were. We took an intellectual risk because we thought about what we knew and made a smart guess.  Here are the pictures we studied:

We shared what we know about what seeds need to grow.  We read a beautiful book called A Seed is Sleepy, by Dianna Aston and Sylvia Long.  This book shows many typical, as well as unusual seeds and the plants they grow into.  We discussed whether A Seed is Sleepy is a good title for the book and why.  
In math we played a fun game called Garbage.  I'll send home the directions for this game tomorrow, but the kids use what they know about greater and less than to put cards in order.  We had a great time playing this game, especially when they picked a card that was garbage!

Have a nice evening!
​Juliet

Today we worked with the cycle of the seasons.  We learned more about the seasons with Moby and Annie.  We read a whimsical book called Red Sings from the Treetops, by Joyce Sidman.  This is a beautifully illustrated book that focuses on the colors of each season.  We sang a song about the seasons and made a booklet to go with the words of the songs for each season.  For fun, I sent home a few papers with Piggie and Elephant on them.  The children are to choose books for these characters based on each season.  We briefly talked about it and they can do it at home for fun.  
This afternoon we read a classic children's book that many of you probably read as children.  We read A Busy Year, by Leo Lionni.  After we stopped saying his name over and over, we read the story and focused on the way Leo Lionni illustrated the book with collage.  We worked at different stations to create pictures of trees during the different seasons.  We had stations for paper collage , oil pastels, water colors and tempera paint.  The children were so focused and worked so nicely.  They did a great job creating the trees for different seasons.  I know you will be very proud when you hear that one child thanked me for setting up the stations and letting them do art in the afternoon, and others joined it.  

The purpose of our art afternoon was to show the different seasons using a tree and color.  The children got to use different mediums to create their tree.  They did a great job helping with clean-up, so this is definitely something we will do more often!
Have a nice evening!
​Juliet

Today we started our day by analyzing these photographs.  At first, many students guessed these were undersea creatures.  Then a couple children suggested these were germs, and we began our lesson about germs and washing hands.  We talked about what we already knew about germs, then watched a quick video from Sid the Science Kid.  Here it is:

We read a book called The Germ's Journey, by Thom Rooke M.D.  This book was funny, but informative.  We found out that germs from a sneeze travel at over 100 mph and could live on some surfaces for a couple days.  We talked about important times to wash hands.  Ask me to name three times it's very important to wash our hands.  We also sang a song to the tune of Happy Birthday to You twice so we know how long we should be washing our hands.  Ask me to sing the Hand Washing Song and show you how to wash my hands.  
Today we also talked about our favorite season.  We did some writing and worked hard to put in supporting details.  We started with a good sentence that told what our favorite season is and then used details to support it.  We are learning to write more to share our ideas better.  
In math, we worked with comparing length but also with comparing quantity.  We made inchworms measuring sticks.  We put on one inchworm for each letter of our name.  Then we compared our name sticks with other students.  We recorded our name on a chart to show whether their name had fewer, equal or more letters than our own.  But we weren't done yet!  Then we started with one name stick and added on each kid's name stick.  We practiced counting-on; we started with my name stick which had six letters, then started counting at seven to add on Arnesh's name, then we continued adding names and counting on until everyone's name had been added.  We found out we have 127 letters in all of our first names when we combine them!  Check us out working hard!

Don't forget, our Weather Fashion Show is Friday.  Please help your child find an outfit for a specific time of weather to model.  While we were waiting for dismissal today we did some practice modeling.  Brodie just might be available to teach modeling!  She did a great job showing us how to walk the runway1 

Have a nice evening!
​Juliet