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!

December Manatee Award Winners

Congratulations to our December Manatee Award Winners! Jennifer recieved an award for using Manatee Manners, Juan for his hard work in Math, Jamileth for her hard work in Literacy, Tayshawn for his hard work in the Media Center, and Quinn for his hard work in Art . Great job!

Action Verb Poetry

After working on Action Verbs in writing we worked on writing our own Action Verb poems. Mrs. Husketh helped us scan and record our poems so we could share them with the world! Enjoy and turn up your volume!

Congratulations! (part 1)

It's time for Manatee Award Winners again! It felt so nice to start our Friday with an assembly to celebrate all our hard work and effort.
Congratulations go to.... Daniel for working hard in Math, Quinn for working hard in Literacy and PE, Kristina for working hard using her Manatee Manners, Stephen for working hard in the Media Center and the whole class for working hard in Spanish!

Stephen and Quinn with their awards!

More pics to come of the other award winners!

And last, but not least....

Stephen was super excited to check out his birthday book! Happy birthday, Stephen!  

What's the Matter?

We have started a new research science topic this week- matter. We are exploring the properties of solids, liquids and gases. In this activity we were exploring baggies filled with air, water and a tennis ball to discover some very important properties.

Checking out the tennis ball

Checking out the baggie of water

One question on the observation sheet was "Can you pass a craft stick through it?"

We recorded our observations on this sheet and concluded that we had explored a solid, liquid and gas!