Math with Mr. Barrett

Our Math specialist, Mr. Barrett, has been coming into class to help us with Math about once a week. It has been awesome having a math guru assist us! He taught us a few fun games and introduced us to bar models. Thank you, Mr. Barrett!

 Practicing bar modeling...

 Using our base-tens to help with our facts...

 Playing an addition game with cards...

Busy Children

Our kids were so busy this week! Between birthdays and our STAR of the Week, we fit a lot in.
We learned so much about our STAR of the Week, Miss Norah, and her family. Thank you for coming in and teaching us more about your family.

 Norah brought in her mom and dog, Ellie. Ellie played tug-of-war. The kids thought it was hilarious!

 Norah also brought in her dad who taught us how the internet works! I learned a lot too! It was really neat.

 We threw a tennis ball across the room to see how the internet sends information.

 

Along with STAR of the Week, we also had Torri's birthday! Thank you to Torri and her mom for bringing in a delicious cookie cake and reading us "Diary of a Fly."

Heaven

A few weeks ago, I asked the children to journal about what they thought Heaven was like. The kids really surprised me. What they wrote was so incredibly beautiful, I told them we should make a class book. So, we edited, revised, and made final copies of our work and put it into a book. They did a wonderful job.

Please feel free to come in and read the book when you have a minute!

STAR of the Week and Birthdays

We had a very full week! We had Miss Fancy Nancy as our STAR of the Week. She brought in beautiful pictures and two guests! The first guest Nancy brought in was her dance teacher, Miss Natalie. She taught us so much about ballet and read us a story about dancing. We learned a lot from her!

 

Nancy also brought in her Grandma who read us a story. We got to eat doughnuts because it was part of the story. Thank you for sharing and bringing in some of your favorite people, Nancy.

 

 

This week was also Katie and Trinity's birthday! The girls read us a story together and both their moms brought us treats! It was wonderful. Happy Birthday, girls!

 

Visitors

 This past Friday, my family came to Denver to visit. I thought the kids would enjoy meeting two of my sisters and learning from them as well. Kathleen taught the kids all about France. She has lived in France and is fluent. The kids learned where it is, what it looks like, what kind of food the French eat, etc. We also watched a clip from Beauty and the Beast in French. The kids loved it!

 

 My sisters also helped give the kids their Friday spelling test.

 My youngest sister, Molly read the children "If You Bring a Mouse to School." They love being read to!

It was wonderful having my sisters at school with us :)

Week 4

We had our second STAR of the Week, Denny. Thank you for sharing and bringing in your mom to read that awesome story with the hidden mouse. The kids really enjoyed it.

We also celebrated John-Paul's birthday. He brought in delicious vegan cupcakes. His mom also came and read "Diary of a Worm" to us. John-Paul even read some of the book. He did a great job. Thank you! The kids had a fabulous time.

Phonics with Ms. Cathy

We also have been having Ms. Cathy come in and help us with our Spelling and Phonics the past few weeks. We love having her in the room. She also took us on a "word search" with our spelling sounds. My group had to search for the short and long "I."

 

 

Doing our word sorts first.

 

Thanks, Ms. Cathy for making phonics fun :)

Singapore Math

We've been doing a lot of math lately. We are working on addition with and without regrouping. We use the base 10 blocks to help us visually see how to do it.

The idea is to move from the concrete (the blocks) to the abstract (doing the problems on paper).

Mo Willems: Author Study

The past few weeks we have been studying Mo Willems who is one of our class' favorite authors. He write books like "Knuffle Bunny" and "Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus." We discussed the differences in his books and watched an interview with him. Since we are such big fans of his writing, we decided to write our own book. We brainstormed book titles and what it should be about. We finally decided our book should be called "Don't Let the Pigeon Go to the Movies." Each student wrote a page. It turned out great.

 Doing some research...

Some rough drafts...

 

Our final product!

 

The kids love reading their own book!

The First Few Weeks

We've had a great first few weeks of school! We've learned a lot in a short amount of time :)

Practicing our Spelling words with wiki stix...

 

 

 

W also had our first STAR of the Week! Thanks for sharing, John! It was also his birthday that week. Thank you to his mom, Kendra for coming to read us the story about the New Orleans Saints. The kids really enjoyed it.