Quick Recap!!

It's been such a long time since we've update the blog, and there's been so much happening in our classroom! We wanted to make sure to tell you about some of our favorite things that have happened in the last month or so. Make sure to read the whole thing! There will be lots of pictures, and maybe even a few videos!
During literacy, we've been doing a lot of reading! We've really been stretching our brains and have started reading for longer periods of time.

We've learned to stay focused, and we've even learned to read with our friends near us without getting distracted!

Currently, we really love the "Diary of a Wimpy Kid" series. It seems like everyone in our class has a copy checked out each week!

On Friday, the weather was BEAUTIFUL! We decided to go outside to read on the playground. Everyone got to choose their own place.

Unfortunately, it soon started to RAIN!! We quickly ran for cover to protect our books, but we decided we liked reading outside too much to head to our classroom! We stayed on the sidewalk, instead.

During research, we finished our sound unit. We worked really hard to learn all about pitch, sound waves, frequency, and how our ears work.

At the end of our sound unit, everyone made their very own working instruments!

After our sound unit, we started our "Then and Now" unit! One afternoon, we spent our time churning our own butter and making 9-block quilts. We wanted to try our hand at the same chores Laura Ingalls would have had. We decided that our chores today are so much easier! The good news is, our butter was delicious! We ate it on biscuits during snack time. Miss K turned our quilt blocks into floor pillows so we can use them during literacy! All of our hard work was worth it! 

  

Phew! Finally, here are just a few pictures from some fun times we've had as a class! 

Frosty Fun!

In writing we have been learning about how to write a compare and contrast essay. To practice these skills we decided to have some "Frosty Fun"!  We made sure that we followed the steps of the writing process too.

First each student made a snowperson and worked with a partner to discuss how the snowpeople were alike and different. This was the "Brainstorming" stage.

Then it was onto the 2nd stage of the process.  We wrote our Rough Drafts. After finishing our rough drafts we started Editing and Revising our work to make it better.

The last step of the writing process is to Publish your work. Check out our Final Copies!

Government in Action

We have been studying local government in Research. To put our government knowledge to the test we decided to have our own class government. After students learned about the 3 important parts of local government (Mayor, Council and Judges) and talked about character traits for the people in these different parts they chose what group they thought they would do well in.

Here is our Government chart. It explains the responsibilites of each group and their assignment.

We spent some time working on how to work in a group and use our Habit of the Mind "Thinking Interdependently".

The Mayor group, the Council group and the Judges group met together to work on their assignments. The mayors had to decide on a class name, the council had to decide on a class law and the judges had to decide on a few reasonable consequences for breaking the class law.

Coucil group working on a class law

Mayor group deciding a class name

Judges deciding on a few reasonable consequences

The decisions of our Class Government

We had a Court Day where the students that did not follow the Class Law were seen by the judges and given a consquence. The judges were very fair and reasonable in their rulings!

Judges deliberating

We had a great time trying out our own class government and plan to have meetings a few more time this year to make decisions together for our class community!

Polar Express Day

On the last day before Winter Break the class had Polar Express Day. In the moring we read the wonderful book by Chris Van Alsburg.

After reading the book we worked on our Polar Express activity packet. This packet challenged us to think more deeply about the book, make connections and reflect on the lessons we learned. And we also had some fun completing the word search and maze!

In the afternoon as we were all snuggly in our PJs, we watched The Polar Express movie. During the movie we drank delicious hot chocolate with lots of yummy marshmallows.

It certainly was a great way to spend the day together!