Quick announcement from music class:
The students have been exploring Chrome Music Lab in class. Here is the link to try it at home:
https://musiclab.chromeexperiments.com/
This week included lots of Leprechaun silliness!
In literacy, we finished Jolly Phonics! I can't believe it! We learned the sounds /ue/, /er/, and /ar/. We also continued to practice how to writing and opinion writing. On Monday the students taught me how to catch a leprechaun through their writing. This came in handy on St. Patrick's Day :) We also did another directed drawing of a leprechaun. On Wednesday, they wrote about why they were lucky. The growth in their writing has been amazing! I can't wait for you to see it at conferences.
We started addition in math this week and the students have been ROCKING IT! Monday, we did a task called "shake and spill". The students each had 5 double-sided counters in a cup. They shook them up and spilled them on the table and counted how many were red and how many were yellow. They then wrote the equation out on the table. We had great discussions about how the equation always came out to 5, and what to do if all the counters were red and none were yellow (5+0=5). On Wednesday we made adding machines. The students worked in a group and used 2 paper towel tubes and tape to build their machines. They then rolled 2 dice, and put that number of counting cubes through the tube and then counted what it added up to. This was a great visual to show how addition is part-part whole. We have also continued to use dominoes, and this week with our buddies we used the 2 sides of the domino to make addition equations.
The students have been exploring Chrome Music Lab in class. Here is the link to try it at home:
https://musiclab.chromeexperiments.com/
This week included lots of Leprechaun silliness!
In literacy, we finished Jolly Phonics! I can't believe it! We learned the sounds /ue/, /er/, and /ar/. We also continued to practice how to writing and opinion writing. On Monday the students taught me how to catch a leprechaun through their writing. This came in handy on St. Patrick's Day :) We also did another directed drawing of a leprechaun. On Wednesday, they wrote about why they were lucky. The growth in their writing has been amazing! I can't wait for you to see it at conferences.
We started addition in math this week and the students have been ROCKING IT! Monday, we did a task called "shake and spill". The students each had 5 double-sided counters in a cup. They shook them up and spilled them on the table and counted how many were red and how many were yellow. They then wrote the equation out on the table. We had great discussions about how the equation always came out to 5, and what to do if all the counters were red and none were yellow (5+0=5). On Wednesday we made adding machines. The students worked in a group and used 2 paper towel tubes and tape to build their machines. They then rolled 2 dice, and put that number of counting cubes through the tube and then counted what it added up to. This was a great visual to show how addition is part-part whole. We have also continued to use dominoes, and this week with our buddies we used the 2 sides of the domino to make addition equations.
We also did a science experiment this week. We made "rain in a jar". We watched a Brain Pop about weather and the water cycle and talked about why we think it rains. We then specifically talked about clouds and how they make the rain. Our conclusion was that it rains when water collects in the cloud and then falls when it gets too heavy. The students made predictions of what they thought would happen and then we made it rain! It was such a cool little experiment.
The highlight of our week was definitely our St. Patrick's Day STEM centers. The morning started out with a leprechaun visiting our room! He was so sneaky and left behind green footprints everywhere, made a mess, and even turned the water in our toilet green! The students were very determined to catch him and make him clean up his mess :) Our centers included making leprechaun traps out of our recycled materials, exploring green water and pennies, making a rainbow from playdoh and pipe cleaners to hold a "pot of gold", and building with rainbow blocks and pennies. It was so fun! Thanks to Alyse for helping us out.
Friday we saw the awesome 3rd grade recorder concert and had a little indoor recess.
I will not update the blog next week. I will include what we do on Monday/Tuesday in my post the week we return. Now that we have formally learned all our sounds, we will really be focusing on reading, blending CVC words, and comprehension when we get back.
Have a great Spring Break!
Have a great Spring Break!