The Week Before Christmas

Christmas Around the World Continues:

We visited the country of Italy.  This is what we learned:

• Old Befana leaves candy for the children and she is still looking for baby Jesus.  CT
• She leaves candy for the children on January 6th. SD
• January 6th is the feast of the three kings.  AM
• Old Befana was mean at first and then she turned nice.  MT
• Old Befana was baking for baby Jesus.  She got tired and took a nap.  When she woke up she was running and running and running to find baby Jesus.  Then she found she was running in the air.  AH
• We read the story "Old Befana" by Tomie dePaoloa.  TB
• St. Francis of Assisi built the first nativity scene. JN

We made crowns to remind us of the celebration on the feast of the three kings.

Bear Hibernation Day

• On the first day of winter we brought in our stuffed animal bears.   CG
• Bears hibernate in winter so we brought in our bears to hibernate.  IM
• We brought in bags to be their caves so they could hibernate in them.  FD
• We made stuff for our bears like a tv, a dog, a baby bottle.  We glued them in the cave.  EM
• We will take the bears out on the first day of spring.  KG

Here are the bears before entering their caves.

Here are the bears after they entered their cave.

We can't wait until spring to see our bears again!

This week we also made beautiful nativity scenes.  The girls worked so well together, helping each other to finish their project.  There was a great spirit of cooperation and generosity throughout the room this week!  Here is one of our Nativity scenes:

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all our blog visitors!

We would love to hear from you!

Christmas Around the World

We have been visiting different countries to see how they celebrate Christmas.  We went to Mexico and this is what we learned.

1. "The Mexican people celebrate 'Las Posadas'. It is when two people dress up as Mary and Joseph and they try to find a place to have Jesus.  There is someone dressed up as a devil, and when Joseph and Mary knock, the devil says 'don't let them in'." - E
 2.  We read 'The Night of Las Posadas by Tomie dePaola. Mrs. L
3.  "We have a Christmas tree decorated with poinsettias." -J
4.  "We read the story of the "Legend of the Poinsettia". Je
5.  "The Legend of the Poinsettia" is a legend that comes from Mexico."- A

Here is our Mexican Christmas tree.  It has poinsettias on it.

In Mexico we also learned about Our Lady of Guadalupe.
1. "She is beautiful."--I
2. " She appeared to Juan Diego."--L
3.  "She gave Juan Diego a sign of herself."--C
4.  "On Juan Diego's tilma there appeared a picture of Our Lady of Guadalupe."--Am
5.  "Our Lady of Guadalupe appeared as an Aztec Indian."  -An
6/  "Mary told Juan Diego to go to the priest and ask him to build a church."--M
7.  "Mary also had Juan Diego put roses in his tilma."--Ce
We made roses and put them around Mary to honor her.

We went to Germany.  We learned about German traditions.
1.  "We learned that they lay their shoes out on December 6th." -C
2.  "St. Nicholas puts treats in their shoes."-Am
3.  "We decorated the German tree with shoes." -K

4.  "We learned that the Germans go door to door singing Christmas carols." --J
Here is our tree from Germany, decorated with shoes!

We visited Canada. When we got to Canada, we fell in love with the caribou.  We found out they were reindeer.

1.  "We learned that reindeer are called caribou in Canada.  They live in Canada."--E
2.  "Canada is cold and near the North Pole.  We think Santa gets his reindeer from Canada." Ce
 3.  "The caribou shed their antlers in the fall and grow them back in the spring."--T
Here is our Canadian tree.  We put caribou on the tree.  We also found a great website where we  watched Santa feed his reindeer at 11:00am!  http://reindeercam.com/

We are going to learn about more Christmas traditions.  Do you have any favorite Christmas traditions?  If so could you write to us and let us know what they are?

Fish and Working Together

We learned about fish in science.  We learned about their different body parts, and their purpose.  Then we worked in  small groups to create a fish poster.  We were each given two parts of the fish to draw, label and define.  The best part of this project was learning to work together.  Listen to what we learned about working together:
 1. "If we work together, we can get done faster."--E
 2.  "We all help each other."--L
 3.  "If we work together we can find new friends."--T
 4.  "When we work together, we learn to be nice to each other."--M
 5.   "We can all help each other to draw parts of the fish."--K
 6.   "If we need help with something, there is someone to help us."--C
 7.   "When we work together we can learn more about each other."A

Here are a few of our fish projects!   You can see that we learned a lot about working together!

Do you work together in your job?  Or on a volunteer committee?   What have you learned about working together? 

The First Thanksgiving

We had a wonderful unit in November that focused on the first Thanksgiving.  First we learned why the Pilgrims journeyed to America.  We learned a lot of facts about the Mayflower.  We created our own Mayflower ships and wrote one of the facts about the ship on the sails.

You can see our ships sailing for America!  We used the Scholastic site to help us learn about the Mayflower.
Then we learned about the hardships the Pilgrims experienced on the Mayflower.  We wrote an opinion piece in the form of the a postcard.   We stated whether or not we enjoyed the voyage on the Mayflower.

Then we learned about the daily life of the Pilgrim and Wampanoag people.  We read books and again used the Scholastic site.  We compared and contrasted their life and culture.  Then we made a Pilgrim home.

We also made a "wetu", a Wampanoag home.

We finished our unit by writing another opinion piece.  We wrote about whether or not we would like to live in the time of the Pilgrims.  We made sure to support our opinion with several good reasons.  The learning experience was a lot of fun!

Plants

Plants

We have been learning about plants. We learned that plants need water, air, sunlight and soil to survive. The parts of a plant are the stem, roots, flower, leaves and seeds. We learned that there are capillaries inside the stem. The capillaries are hollow tubes that carry the water from the stem to the flower. We looked at the capillaries in celery.

What we did was add red food dye to water. We put the celery in the water. We were able to see the red dye around the capillaries. We also saw that the leaves of the celery turned red. This is because the water traveled up the capillaries to the leaves.

Here is the celery with red leaves.

We also put blue food dye in water.
We put a carnation in the blue food dye. We observed that the petals of the carnation began to turn a little blue.

We also planted marigold seeds.



The seeds started to grow in a pot that we decorated for Mother's Day.

Our Research Topic--Flies

Today we learned how to do research on a topic. We chose to research flies. We wrote a group report about flies. This is what we wrote.

Flies

There are more than 85,000 types of flies. Flies don't sting, but some bite. Some female flies suck blood from animals for their eggs. Male flies do not bite people, they get food from plants. Mosquitoes belong in the fly family. They lay their eggs on the surface of the water. Flies are interesting.

What type of flies do you know about? Please write to us.

What's the Buzz? It's All About Matter!

We have been learning about the states of matter in fun ways! We started with liquids. We learned that liquids take the shape of the container that they are in. We raced drops of water, corn syrup, vegetable oil, and rubbing alcohol down a flat surface. By doing this we learned that some liquids flow faster than others. Then we put the four liquids together in a container. The corn syrup sank to the bottom while the vegetable oil stayed on top. By doing this we learned that some liquids are more dense than others. Then we took green punch and filled ice cube trays. We put the ice cube trays in the freezer. At the end of the day we took the trays out of the freezer. We no longer had punch, but popsicles. We learned that matter can change from a liquid to a solid when the temperature changes!


Our Four Liquids!

Some liquids are more dense than others!

Matter can change states when the temperature changes!

Yummy!

What's the Buzz? We Are Rainbow Catchers!

What do you need to catch a rainbow? We learned that you need sunlight and water to catch a rainbow. We learned that sunlight looks white but is really made of different colors: red, orange, yellow, green, blue, indigo and violet. When sunlight travels through water the light bends and separates into all different colors. So we went outside to catch a rainbow with water, mirror and a sun. However, we were unable to catch a rainbow. We think it had to do with the time of day that we went hunting. We went back to the classroom. We were determined! We took a vase of water and put it on a table in a sunny section of the room. We reflected sunlight from a mirror through the vase of water. Guess what! We found rainbows!

Our Prediction and Our Rainbows!

What's the Buzz? Whole Group Conferencing!

On Friday we worked with partners to create Storybirds that have a problem and a solution. Monday and Tuesday we reviewed the stories. We read the stories as a class to see if they had an identifiable problem and solution. If the story did not have a problem and solution the class offered ideas to the authors. The authors had the final decision on how to complete the Storybird.

Basically we completed peer conferencing through a whole group discussion. This was such a valuable lesson. The peers were able to ask the authors for clarification on ideas and sequence. The peers also offered great ideas and suggestions. We will be able to take the skills we practiced in our whole group conferencing process and apply that to one-on-one peer conferencing.

Check out this Storybird:
The Lost Friend on Storybird

Here is another Storybird:
Food land on Storybird

More Storybirds will be coming!!!

Our Class Storybird

Today we wrote a class Storybird. This is our first Storybird. We plan to work with a partner on Friday to create our own Storybirds! Taffy's Great Adventure by long1b on Storybird

What's the buzz? Retelling "EEK! There's a Mouse in the House"

Today we worked on retelling the story "EEK, There's a Mouse in the House" by Wong Herbert Yee. First we identified the important events in the story. Then we each picked one of the events to illustrate and write about. Next we learned how to use our new Ladibug scanner! We took a picture of our illustrations. Our teacher uploaded the pictures in Photostory. Then we recorded what we wrote. Now we present to your our fabulous retell of EEK! There's a Mouse in the House!

What's the Buzz? Problem, Solution and Collaboration

We have been working on identifying problem and solution in a story. We read "The Sleeping Pig" by Carmen Tafolla and Jan Epton Seale. Then we worked with a partner to identify the problem and solution. Each set of partners drew a picture of the problem and solution. Then partners wrote a couple sentences about the problem and solution. Each set of partners practiced reading what they wrote. Finally the partners were ready for recording. Check out our work it demonstrates collaboration, reading, writing and speaking skills! And And And AND

What's the Buzz: Our One Hundredth Day of School

On February 14th we celebrated our 100th day of school and Valentine's Day! The 100th day of school came right at the end of our unit on place value and numbers to 100. (Hmmm did the teacher plan it that way?;) Our students each created a poster showing 100 objects creatively displayed. They wrote a couple sentences about their poster, and shared this with the class. There were so many amazing ideas! We also decorated crowns with 100 stickers. Later in the day we wrote about what we would be like when we were 100. Then we created a picture of ourselves when we will be 100. The day was a lot of fun. Here are just a few pictures of our posters and one of our crowns!

Cause and Effect with Jing

We continue to work on our cause and effect pictures. Many of the students found that writing what the wanted to say helped them with their audio recording. I thought this was a valuable lesson. and another Let us know what you think!

More Cause and Effect

(Stay tuned there is even more to come!) Here is another example of cause and effect. And another. . .

Identifying Cause and Effect

We are learning to identify cause and effect in stories. We worked together with a partner to create an example of cause and effect. You can listen to us explain our examples.

What's the buzz? Neighborhood Maps on Kidspiration!

We were reading "Me on the Map" in class.  Like the girl in the story, we learned to locate our city, our state, our country and our continent.  Then we learned how to read different types of maps.  However the best part of this learning experience came on Thursday.   We used the laptops from our laptop cart to make neighborhood maps on Kidspiration software.  We had so much fun.  We will finish our maps this week!

What's the buzz? AudioBoo!

We are always looking for authentic ways to explore reading, writing and speaking.  We are currently using AudioBoo to support this practice.  AudioBoo lets us create an audio recording.  We began to create audio recordings that featured daily highlights.  At the end of our day we brainstorm and write about the best part of our day.  Then one student creates the audio recording by reading what they wrote.  Our AudioBoo account is linked to our class Twitter account.  We hope to receive feedback from our followers. The conversation on Twitter will help us to see the power of our words.  Stay tuned, we will write more on how this practice helps us to grow as readers, writers and speakers!  You can check out AudioBoo by following this link or you can listen to our "boos" on the side post of this blog.

What's the buzz? The Chinese New Year!

We completed a unit on China this week culminating with a Chinese New Year celebration on January 23rd.  Throughout the unit we learned about Chinese culture.  Perhaps the most interesting part of the unit was learning about the Chinese New Year.  We learned about many of their customs.   We wore red on Monday, January 23rd, since red is the color of good luck.  We celebrated the year of the dragon by making foam dragons.  We wrote our names in Chinese using brushes made from bamboo and black ink.  We made lanterns after learning about the lantern festival.We read Grandfather Tang's Story and created our own tangram pictures.  We read many other books which you can check out on our Shelfari. However the best part was having a celebration which included fried rice, green tea and fortune cookies.  Can you believe that we ate our fried rice with chopsticks!  We had a great time!

Here is a picture of one of our tangrams:

Here is some of our Chinese writing:

Here is one of our dragons:

We hung our red lanterns in the classroom:

A special thanks to all the parents who help with our celebration!