​Our Thanksgiving week was a fun one! 

We started off Monday by learning about sink and float. We tested out what we learned by experimenting with different objects in our room. We made predictions and then recorded the results. This gave us great ideas for building our boats. 

It was a perfect week remembering what we are thankful for. 
Wishing all families a very happy Thanksgiving! ​

This week was all about Elephant and Piggie! 

On Monday, we read Can I Play Too? by Mo Willems and learned how to find text evidence. We talked about that if you tell us something about a character in a book (like how they act or feel), you have to prove it! The students practiced this by using evidence to prove that Elephant or Piggie was a good friend. They marked their evidence pages with sticky notes. Then, we learned how to draw both Elephant and Piggie, and practiced! We used this video by Mo Willems which was great practice in direction following. ​

Tuesday we read A Big Guy Took my Ball, and then broke into two centers. The first center was finding more evidence that Piggie or Elephant were good friends, and then drawing the scene that showed the evidence. The students also used speech bubbles to practice writing and to show even more evidence. The second center was making a blueprint of a setting for our book, building it, and then retelling the story using puppets. Some students also made the characters out of play-dough. Everyone worked really hard and collaborated so well! ​

We also had ALO with Mrs. Belkind. We read a book called City By Numbers by Stephen Johnson, where we looked for hidden numbers in real pictures. We will be searching for numbers all over Indian Trail next week. 

Wednesday we continued with our Elephant and Piggie centers and rotated. We also completed our RMD sort, reviewed all of our Jolly Phonics sounds, and played outside. We are getting so spoiled by these beautiful fall days! ​

We wrapped up our Elephant vs. Piggie election unit by voting on who we thought was a better friend and leader. We had real ballots and a voting booth too! We counted and graphed our results and Piggie ended up being our winner by one vote.  

We also did our first formal "read to self" time. We read How to Read a Story by Kate Messner, and practiced getting comfy and reading quietly and independently. 

Last but not least, we did a new type of sound scavenger hunt, where the students had to write the words they found that started with R, M, or D. ​

Next week will be all about Thanksgiving! We will be learning about traditions, celebrations, and being thankful. And of course... prepping for our FEAST! ​

What a week! 

Monday started off with Halloween! We started our day retelling The Little Old Lady Who Wasn't Afraid of Anything. They retold it to a partner, and everyone did a great job remembering so many details. 

We had so much fun at our Halloween parade, followed by our class party. Thank you to Linda, Courtney, and Katie for all your hard work planning! 

Tuesday we enjoyed the most gorgeous fall day by gutting, counting, and smashing our pumpkins. We took to the courtyard and dissected our pumpkins and counted the seeds in 10 frames. After practicing counting by 10s and 1s, we had fun smashing the pumpkins and seeing what the insides looked like. We also read and listened to 5 Little Pumpkins.  The students then completed a STEM challenge: can you build a gate out of blocks that can hold 5 pumpkins? Before they could build, the students had to make a blueprint to plan out their design- including writing labels. We talked about how "plan A" does not always work, and that it is ok to have to make a "plan B"! They did great with this. 

On Wednesday we revisited our 5 Little Pumpkins challenge. The students had to build a gate out of our makerspace materials, and then retell the story/song. Again, they did great writing a plan, executing it, and then retelling! We also had free choice centers, and learned a new math domino game focusing on more than/less than.  And of course, we celebrated the Cubs winning the World Series!! 

Thursday, we played our new domino game again. The students did a great job adding the two sides together and identifying more or less than 6. We also started our mini election/leadership unit. I tweaked my original plans, and we are going to be voting on Elephant vs. Piggie from Mo Willems books! We read I Love My New Toy Thursday, and talked about character traits.

Additionally, this week we learned R, M, and D in Jolly Phonics and Handwriting. We are working hard on blending letters to make and read words. 

On Friday, we read My Friend is Sad by Mo Willems, and identified more character traits of Elephant and Piggie. We then discussed what the word "leader" means, and identified leaders we know. The students talked about the line leader, a teacher, a principal, a coach, the president, and mom and dad :) We then watched this video of Kid President meeting President Obama, and discussed what it takes to be a good leader. We said kindness, helping others, teaching, and being safe, respectful, and responsible. Next week, we will work on identifying what character traits Elephant and Piggie have that would make them good leaders. Then we will vote!