Get.Out.Side.

We were outside as MUCH as possible this week, enjoying the last bit of warm fall weather!  First of all, we started the week with an absolutely gorgeous day at Moon Lake.  THANK YOU so much to all of the parents/brothers/sisters who came with us! And thank you to Tetlin National Wildlife Refuge for providing the canoes! We went canoeing, made boats, went on a walk to look for berries and fall leaves, got to watch a float plane land and take off a couple of times, collected aquatic insects, and had a picnic, complete with a bonfire and s'mores, and plenty of just chill time playing on the beach and in the sand!  We could not have asked for a better day, and we all decided school should be like that all the time!

Then on Tuesday, we went outside by the school track and picked cranberries... we were on a mission.  We needed cranberries to make cranberry muffins for our Book Buddies, as you will see later!

Back in the classroom, we had a great time reading a recipe and stirring, mixing, measuring and making a wonderfully yummy mess! 

We invited our 4th Grade Book Buddies to a muffin party on Wednesday!  We read, If You Give a Moose a Muffin and had fun writing a collaborative story called, If You Give a Tok Student a Muffin...  It is still a work in progress, and I will share the published e-version soon!  We also got a chance to read books in the library with our buddies.  We will be getting together once a month all year!  

We earned a Popcorn Party this week by learning 10 popcorn words!  Every time we learn 10 more words in class on our word wall, we will have a party!  (Kids can go at their own pace with the words that come home, as fast or as slow as they need to, but we will continue to learn several a week in class as well...)

In math we continue to fill in our hundreds chart and look for patterns.  We also are learning about even and odd numbers, equal, and greater than/less than.  Here the kids are learning symmetry and even and odd by using pennies to make symmetrical dots on their ladybugs.  

We did a journal write this week based on Shel Silverstein's book, The Giving Tree, one of my all time favorites!  Here is our "word tree" from our brainstorming session.  These are some of the things the kids would like to give if they had a "Giving Tree!"  

Here are a couple of pictures of our daily routine!  Writing on the Morning Message board, having Morning Meeting, eating lunch, and playing at recess!

Sensing Fall!

We went outside for writing last week, to explore our senses and draw and write about them!  We had fun tasting cranberries, touching everything we could get our hands on, and smelling lots of old leaves, listening for birds and airplanes, and seeing beautiful fall leaves!  The kids said they always want to have writing class outside!!!

We explored our sense of sight by watching a video of how animals see differently than we do.  We also learned about people who don't have their sense of sight, and how they read with braille!  

We combined our study of the sense of hearing with learning about the letter M for music!  We made some great music in our classroom with instruments.  

We practiced using describing words with a sense of touch game.  The kids had to feel something in the box, and describe it to their friends to try to guess what it was.  It was tough!

We played "Guess that smell" and found out how hard it is to identify smells unless you use your other senses as clues, too!

Everyone's favorite sense this week was probably exploring the sense of taste!  Ms. Charlotte, one of our awesome aides, shared her award winning apple pie recipe with us.  We learned how to read a recipe and practiced reading the numbers before we began cooking.  We had a great time making the pies and then sharing them with our families and our first grade friends at a pie party!!!

Here is the recipe if you want to try it at home!

In math we are exploring the concept of equal.  We used balances to demonstrate equality and inequality.  We also learned about how Native Alaskans used boats for fishing and how to load the boats carefully so they are balanced.  We learned a bit about fractions and following directions when we made our own paper boats and loaded them carefully with playdoh to see if we could balance them in the water!  The kids couldn't believe me when I told them we were going to do math with playdoh.  It was so much fun!!!  

In math also we finished our 10 Apples Up On Top project... We found out that it is a lot easier to balance apples with glue on paper than it is to balance them on our heads!  

Next week is Spirit Week.  The kids are encouraged to participate in dress up days to show school spirit!  

Don't forget to bring warm clothes, puddle boots if you have them, and extra clothes for our field trip to Moon Lake on Monday!

Two Apples Up On Top

It's fall time, and we've been learning all about apples.    We had an apple tasting party and made a graph of our favorite kind of apples!  We read about apples, counted apples, colored apples, tasted apples, and we'll be cooking with apples next week!  We'll be making apple pie and you're all welcome to share it with us next Wednesday at 2pm!

We read Dr. Seuss's book, Ten Apples Up On Top, and then had a hilarious time trying to balance apples.  We only got up to two.  

We are moving right along in reading and math.  This week we started our math and reading groups.  We do a lot of small group work so that the kids get more one-on-one time with the teacher.  The kids are enjoying working together and helping each other with their math... Buddy Math!

One piece of our reading curriculum is a new computer program the District invested in this year called Lexia Core 5 Reading.  It is an adaptive program that places the kids at their own level, and teaches the kids game style, while providing data and feedback to me on which skills the kids need more work on with the teacher.  We are really excited about Lexia!  Of course, we still spend lots of time with real books, doing read-alouds and guided reading and phonics skills in our classroom!

We got to participate in the District cross country race held at Tok on Thursday...  ALL of the kinders ran a 1/2 mile!  I was so proud of them!  They had so much fun they wanted to run some more!