Last Week of March

Center Time!

Hello! Please see the important list of dates for the rest of the year. How crazy is that?

Spring Break: April 7th-14th We return to school April 17th
Artist Play and Art Gallery May 4th at 11:00 in the black box and then our classroom
Organ Concert May 9th at 12:30 (We will need a few helpers for this)
No school: May 12th
Emerald Hollow Mine Field Trip: May 24th (we will need a few helpers for this)
No school: May 26th and 29th
Author's Tea: May 30th Time TBA
LAST DAY OF SCHOOL: May 31st

Reader's Workshop: Everyone received their leveled reader and worked on their passion project. Many children have started editing and it is so cool to see their polished writing.

Math Workshop: This week we worked on fact families using the part/part/total mats. This was really hard but everyone is slowly catching on. Example: I have 3 numbers, 6, 4 and 10 and I can make 4 equations out of that.
6+4=10
4+6=10
10-6=4
10-4=6

Science: I forgot to post that Ms. Rachel's experiment with the pennies the other week was really cool. Everyone experimented with leaving pennies in vinegar for a few minutes versus over the weekend. Then the leftover pennies were used at the end of their rainbows! The children received 3 primary colors and had to create the whole rainbow using just those 3 colors. Last week and this week there was no sci fri.

Thematic Centers: This week our artist was Picasso! What an interesting man. He sculpted, sketched and painted. We read numerous stories about him and his art and rotated through 4 centers:

1. Illustrate the How to Spot a Picasso book
2. After learning about the blue period, paint about a time that made you sad using shades of blue only. Write a sentence to go with it. (This is still at school.)
3. After learning about cubism, create your own portrait using shapes, lines and bright colors. (This is at school for the art show.)
4. Use black paper and chalk to create your own version of Picasso's rooster painting called "La Coq." (This is at school for the art show)
A quick note about these art centers. We are keeping many of these artist centers at school to hang for the gallery walk after our play. We cannot wait for you to see the art.

**We are also in need of baby wipes, spoons and forks if anyone has any to spare! We like to keep the spoons and forks here at school because many children do not pack them in their lunch box.  :)

Have a great weekend,
Mrs. Schultz

March 13-17

What a busy, exciting week! I promise next week will be much calmer. ;)

Reader's Workshop:

This week there were NO leveled readers. We used this week to get a jump start on passion projects. We compiled everyone's research and started making dash facts for certain kids and brainstormed ideas. This took days but everyone is well on their way to having beautiful books. Everyone did received new word study words.

Writer's Workshop:

This fell on our camping day so we wrote letters home from the forest. These were hilarious and so creative. Please have your child read their letter today!

Math Workshop:

This week we rotated through a new tub dealing with building and creating your own word problem. You chose two numbers, a thing and a person. You plug in the items to the word problem formula and then solve! Example: I pulled out the numbers 5 and 29, the thing apples and the name of Ms. Alicia. My word problem would be "I have 5 apples. Ms. Alicia has 29 apples. We have 34 apples all together.: 5+29=35. For kids who are ready, they can also create the reverse operation. 29-5=5.

Camping Day: Thank you to everyone who shared a tent with us. The kids had a blast! We read Bailey Goes Camping by Kevin Henkes and really enjoyed our own camping day. Lots of special memories.

Thematic Unit:

We are still studying authors but this is the last week before we start artists. We read MANY books by Kevin Henkes and rotated through 4 centers:

1. After reading Crysanthamum, plot your name on the name bar graph and see how it compares to others. Answer questions like who has the longest? Shortest? How many more letters would you need to be as long as ____?
2. Choose two characters from the stories we read and compare and contrast them on a venn diagram.
3. After reading Lily's Purple Plastic Purse, make your own purse/bag. Learn about the different values of coins and choose your own amount of money to include in your purse/bag.
4. Read Egg by Kevin Henkes. Using liquid water colors and feathers, paint a picture. Imagine if birds had feathers that left colors behind them! How beautiful would the sky be?

Auction Book:
These are due tomorrow!

Pennies: Please bring in 5-10 dirty pennies for tomorrow's science experiment.

Leprechaun Traps: The traps are awesome and the kids are so excited to try to trap a leprechaun!

Have a great weekend,
Mrs. Schultz

February 27th-March 3rd

What a great week and Happy birthday Dr. Seuss!

Reader's Workshop:

This week everyone received new word study words and their leveled reader. As we have studied Ezra Keats we have also talked about window and mirror characters. Window characters are characters that do not look like us or have similar experiences to us. Mirror characters are characters that look just like us! We have been looking for mirror and window characters this week as we are reading. We also enjoyed reading all day today in honor of Dr. Seuss's birthday. We popped popcorn after reading Hop on Pop and wrote about if we wanted Thing 1 and Thing 2 to visit our house. We read A TON of books to celebrate Read Across America Day. We also read with book buddies. Below are two videos of a couple of tables popping pop corn.

Writer's Workshop:

The month of March's theme for writing is informational books. Many of the kids chose to start writing informational books about their passion project topic. A great idea.

Science:

Last week Ms. Rachel came to talk to us about chromatography. The kids chose a marker and colored a small bit on a coffee filter. They dipped/soaked the coffee filter in water and watched the coffee filter and water draw out all of the colors that made that one color. Who knew there were so many colors in one black marker! The video below shows how excited the kids were.

Thematic Unit:

This week we are still studying authors and we are continuing to study Ezra Keats. We still cannot believe how  beautiful his illustrations are. We also read countless Dr. Seuss books in honor of his birthday this week. We rotated through 3 centers and will continue Ezra next week:

1. We read the book Pet Show and had our very own show complete with a pet sharing and award ceremony.
2. Weigh and measure your pet. Fill out your recording sheet for what color, texture and habitat your pet lives in. Share with a partner.
3. We talked a lot about the setting of Ezra's books and how they took place in the city. Nobody in our class lives in the city so this was neat! We built maps of a make believe town and discussed cardinal directions (north, east, south, west).

Math Workshop:

Using addition, everyone got to create an alien in math! These came home in red folders.

We continued to practice Number Combo and Make 10.

Passion Projects:

Topics and supplies are due Monday!

Auction Book:

Don't forget to turn these in soon! The auction is right around the corner.

Have a great weekend!
Mrs. Schultz