Martin Luther King Jr. Day

We had our Martin Luther King Jr. assembly today! Our kids did a fantastic job performing the song "See Me Beautiful" in sign language.  We saw presentations from the other classes and got to hear from a speaker with cerebral palsy who spoke using a computer system.  We learned so much more about accepting others and what it means to be a great friend.  

More Math Stations

In the afternoon we will usually do a mini-lesson together and then practice skills at stations around the room.  This gives me an opportunity to practice our new skill from the mini lesson in a small group while the rest of the class works on stations. Here are some of our recent stations:

Hot Dots are a fun tool to practice a variety of skills, there is a question in the middle and then the student picks the answer from the choices by touching it with a special pen.  The pen will light up green and make a noise if it's correct and turn red if it's incorrect.  These are math Hot Dots that practice addition, we use our bead counter manipulatives to show the addition problem and check our answer.  

 Addition city building is when a student gets two different colored dice and colored blocks that match the color of the dice.  They roll the two dice and make a "skyscraper" that matches the dice color and numbers.  When their "skyscraper" is built, whatever total number it added to it's "plot" which is its spot on a number line.

My inspiration picture from Pinterest is on the left and our class in action is on the right.

 Ladybug addition is when you spin a spinner and put the matching number of ladybugs on the leaf.  Then you spin the next spinner and do the same.  At the end you add up both ladybugs to get the total.  

Whale Hats

We are starting our science unit on winter animals.  Our first animal we picked was whales because they migrate in the winter.  To study them, we read a book about migration and then started our first winter animals book page.  Then we made whale hats and went outside to a giant map of the US to "migrate" with our pod.  It was so fun!

Colors of Us

We read the book Colors of Us today by Karen Katz. It celebrates that we all have our own unique skin color that is different from anyone else.  After reading the book, we all picked our own food item to describe our unique skin color.  We made a list, drew a picture and wrote down our item and a few friend's descriptive words as well. 

Square Cat

We started our first book on acceptance for the January character development topic of the month. Square Cat by Elizabeth Schoonmaker is about a cat that feels left out because she is a square instead of a circle.  Her friends decide to act compassionately and help square cat find positive things about being a square.  As a class we talked about how to make others feel included.  We then decided if we would want to be a square or circle cat and then made and analyzed a graph of our results.  Finally, we made our own square cat glyphs.  We will also analyze and graph the results of the glyphs. A glyph is when you pick certain colors or shapes for a project based on your response to a question from the book.  In this project the questions were...

Do you like cats?

Would you rather be a circle or square cat?

Do you like donuts?

Is your cat a girl or a boy?

Thanks to Chalk Talk for the idea!

PE Circus

Ms. Angie had the class practicing circus moves in PE last month.  When the class had mastered their moves, they put on a circus performance for me.  They did a great job, thanks Ms. Angie!

January Character Development Topic-Acceptance

Our January topic for character development is acceptance.  This ties in really nicely with Martin Luther King Jr. Day.  Here are the books that we will be using to talk about acceptance in our classroom.

Square Cat

Eula is the only square cat in town. Everything that normal cats do is hard for her -- she can't get her square paw into mouseholes, she can't wear her favorite circle skirt, and all of her friends are round! Eula is sad until her two best friends show her just how well a square cat can fit into this round world.

Barry the Fish with Fingers: 

Life under the sea can be as dull as dishwater, until Barry arrives, that is. See, Barry is no ordinary fish—he's a fish with fingers! And fingers mean finger puppets, finger painting, knitting, counting to ten, tickling, and all sorts of fun things. It isn't long before all of the other fish want fingers, too. Life under the sea will never be the same again. . . . 

The Colors of Us 

Seven-year-old Lena is going to paint a picture of herself. She wants to use brown paint for her skin. But when she and her mother take a walk through the neighborhood, Lena learns that brown comes in many different shades.

Cowboy Slim: 

A cowboy poet who can't rope, whip, or ride? who ever heard of that? Slim knows he could be a real cowboy if the ranch hands would just give him a chance. Action-filled drawings capture the excitement of a cattle run to Dodge City.

The Crayon Box that Talked: 

Yellow hates Red, so does Green, and no one likes Orange! Can these crayons quit arguing and learn to cooperate? Shane DeRolf's deceptively simple poem celebrates the creation of harmony through diversity. In combination with Michael Letzig's vibrant illustrations, young readers will understand that when we all work together, the results are much more colorful and interesting.

The Story of Ferdinand

Ferdinand is the world's most peaceful--and--beloved little bull. While all of the other bulls snort, leap, and butt their heads, Ferdinand is content to just sit and smell the flowers under his favorite cork tree.

The Cow That Went OINK

This mixed-up barnyard tale of tolerance and friendship teaches kids (and creatures) that it's okay to be different . . . and sometimes even more fun!