Today we watched a video that compared Chanukah, Christmas and Kwanzaa.  Ask me about how the holidays are the same, and how they are different.  We had a Mystery Reader and went to the computer lab.  
No homework, since it's just a two day week!  This will be the last blog post of this year since I am leaving school early tomorrow to fly to Ohio to be with my family for the holidays.  
I hope everyone has a safe, happy and relaxing winter break!  
Juliet  

Today we worked hard to create maps that were from a birds-eye view.  We looked at Google maps of places some of us were familiar with, and a couple places we were all familiar with!  Ask me what we could see on the maps we looked at today.  We chose what we wanted to create and used pencils to sketch and add details to our maps.  We thought of a title for the map and added labels.  We began to add color to our maps, but will need to finish up next week.
We spent time playing this afternoon, and ended our day with a Mystery Reader!  
Have a great weekend!  Safe travels to those of you leaving on trips!
Juliet

We enjoyed a special chorus concert today.  Our class did a great job showing performance manners by sitting quietly and responding appropriately with clapping during the concert.  The Fourth and Fifth Grade Choruses were fantastic, and we enjoyed the TV show songs they sang very much, even though Miss Wolfe was probably the only one that knew most of the shows!
We looked at maps once again.  This time we looked at google maps of Disney World and the Bells Mill neighborhood.  We were able to get a better idea of the difference between a bird's eye view and pictures of places we know.  
We worked hard in literacy stations and had fun playing a math game to work more with ten frames.  
We are so excited to be bringing home an art project today.  Ask me about how I made this paper sculpture!
Stay warm!
Juliet

Today we learned about baby animals.  We studied pictures to see how baby animals are like their parents.  We also talked about how animal parents do things that human parents also do with their children.  We wrote and drew pictures to show what we noticed.  Here are some of the pictures we looked at today.  Ask me about how human parents and babies do some of the same things as animal parents and their babies.  

In math today, we played a game with ten frames.  We played Race to 20.  We rolled a die and put counters on our double ten frames.  We told our partner how many counters we had after each turn and how many more we needed for ten or for twenty.  We are going to play this again.  Using ten frames helps us visualize numbers and gives us a good understanding of ten, which is a very important number to know!
Have a nice evening!
Juliet

Be sure to go to our homepage for this week's homework.  We have a special timeline project.  Instructions are in the homework and I will be posting my own timeline later on tonight or tomorrow on the homepage below the homework.  The project is not due until Friday, January 9, 2015, so please don't let those little friends of mine who may come home all ready to start tonight convince you they have to do it right away!  I told them we have a busy couple weeks here at home and school and I don't even want to see this project until the due date.  Please do not send these projects in early since we don't have much room to store them and I don't want anything happening to the projects.  
We had a busy day today learning about maps.  We made maps today of different places like our room, our bedroom, even our heart.  Someone even made a map of Miss Wolfe!  Wow!  
Check out this cool map we looked at this morning!  Ask me about this map!

Have a nice evening!
Juliet

We read the poem We Are Opposites yesterday and today.  We read the poem as a two-part reading.  We added motions to the poem too!  We read the poem off the Promethean Board, so the slightly askew view is due to our director having to sit along the side of the Promethean Board. 

Today we also had a lesson with Mrs. Kanter about DeBug.  DeBug is a set of steps to solve kid-size problems.  I am bringing home a letter today from Mrs. Kanter about DeBug.  Ask me to tell you and show you how I can use the steps in DeBug!

Have a great weekend!
Juliet

Today we studied pictures as clues for one of the lessons today.  We quickly figured out the pictures showed opposites.  We came up with several different opposites for some of the pictures.  Ask me to tell you the opposites that are in each picture!

In Writing Workshop we watched a video about Spaceman.  Tomorrow we will make our own Spacemen, but today we just used a tongue depressor if we still had trouble remembering to put those spaces between our words.  We know that having a space between our words helps our reader easily read what we wrote!  

Enjoy your evening!
Juliet

The past couple weeks we have been looking at some interesting land form photographs and talking about the activities people are doing in these beautiful areas. We have talked about how we would feel if we were catching a wave in Hawaii and surfing or biking over arches in Utah.  We did some data collection today and asked a simple question: Would you rather...
Ask me to tell you about our data.  We also talked about why some chose the activities they did and what would be challenging about these activities.

Today we practiced making words with /an/.  Of course, no lesson in /an/ would be complete without Hammy Swinette singing that old favorite "Stand By Your Can."  

We also read Decibella and Her Six Inch Voice, by Julia Cook.  This was a really important book for us to listen to because we have had trouble with too many loud voices in the classroom when we are working.  We learned about five different voice levels.  They are:  whisper, 6-inch voice, table talk, strong speaker and outside. The author uses the word "slurpadoodle" when Isabella's teacher teachers her about the six voice levels.  Ask me to demonstrate the five levels and tell you when we need to use them.  

Today was a very busy Monday!  We worked on making words with the /am/ chunk. We listened to a great story about a tiger that had beautiful language to describe a mother tiger caring for her two tiger cubs.  Ask me about what mother tigers are called! Tomorrow we will learn more about tigers.  We worked in the computer lab today for math.  We worked with different games using numbers and comparing lengths.   Be sure to check the homepage for our homework for the week!


Have a relaxing evening!
Juliet