Read, Read, Read!

I can't emphasize enough the difference at home reading makes!  It can have an incredible effect on your child's learning and performance in school.  I see it in the children already.  Book A Night and using RazKids at home is not only benefiting your students now but it will continue to pay off throughout their schooling.  These students are already in the habit or reading nightly and are doing wonderfully.  Please keep up the hard work!  Even with a short week this week, we had four readers logging more than 150 minutes and new king and queen for the week.  Congrats!

Contraction Surgery

For spelling this week, we turned our room into an operating room and preformed some very important spelling surgeries.  Our patients are very happy with the results and are recovering beautifully.  We have a very talented group of doctors.

Digital slideshow customized with Smilebox

Royal Readers

This week we celebrated all our readers with our Read-A-Thon pizza party!  The Connected Ones read over 8000 minutes outside of class during our Read-A-Thon!  How amazing!  They were rewarded with a pizza party and impressive level gains that you will see next week on our third quarter report cards.  Way to go!  Further, this week we had six children earning a glow bracelet for reading over 150 minutes between RazKids and book a night.  We crowned a king and queen for reading the most minutes this week.

Mental Math

In math, we are using our strong base of place value to add big numbers.  This week our focus started with the objective of adding and subtracting 10.    We started modeling the concept using place value blocks.  Then we moved to more symbolic thinking using just the hundreds chart.  The students instantly noticed that on a hundreds chart 10 more and 10 less are in the columns.  We have been practicing counting by tens, but starting at different numbers.  For instance, count by tens starting at 7...7, 17, 27, 37, 47.  Below the students are putting together a hundreds chart puzzle.  They have use their knowledge of ten more and ten less to find out where to line up the pieces.  As always, the Connected Ones demonstrated terrific teamwork.

There are some excellent resources online for building number sense using the hundred's chart.   The game 100 Number Chart has the students reassembling a hundreds chart.  Also, there is Number Grid Fireworks that has the students finding particular numbers on a blank hundreds chart.  For ipad users, here are three great apps.  Mystery Number and Place Value MAB both cost $1.99 and the Counting Board chart is free.

In class, we used QR codes to practice mentally adding and subtracting ten.  We went on a QR hunt around the classroom. The QR code would give a clue like "The number is ten less than 57."  The students would record the answer, 47, then find the next code by finding the number 47.  This activity gave the students a lot of mental math practice.  Further, we used QR codes to complete a paper that practiced finding ten more and ten less of a mystery number.

The children are doing very well with these concepts.  We are moving into not only adding and subtracting 10 but also multiples of ten.  For example, students should be able to mentally solve problems like 35+20 and 67-40.  Double digit addition with regrouping (45+27) here we come!

Fairy Tales

We are loving reading and learning about fairy tales.  Every day at read aloud we have been discovering a new tale and having lively discussions about the literary elements.  First,  though the children have to discover the day's fairy tale.  We have a mystery box with an artifact from a particular tale.  The students have to ask questions about the object in the box to solve the riddle.  For instance, of the tale Cinderella, there was a glass slipper in the box.  The students asked questions like, "Can you wear it?" and "Is it breakable?"  In the mystery box we have found The Three Bear's bowl, Jack's magic beans, Rumpelstiltskin's golden thread, Cinderella's shoe, the Emperor's invisible suit, and Rapunzel's long hair.

In our fairy tale study, we have learned about the elements of a fairy tale.  For instance, in fairy tales there is usually magic and the numbers 3 or 7 are important.  We have also learned about the protagonist and and the antagonist.  After we read the story, we chart the different elements in the fairy tale.  The discussions have been so interesting.  We had a lengthy debate about Jack and the Beanstalk and whether or not Jack was really a "good" character.  Some students thought he shouldn't be the hero because he stole from the giant and became greedy.

Through the discussions, the children are learning to share their opinions, justify their thoughts using text evidence, and respectfully agree and disagree with their classmates different points of view.  We  also, by making an fairy tale elements chart, have been able to compare and contrast the different fairy tales.  The children are enjoying the fairy tales so much, they have no idea how many language arts objectives they are learning.

If you are interested in keeping these discussions going, there are some great digital resources available.  First, our school has a subscription to the Early World of Learning on World Book.  In the book corner, there are several fairy tale and folk tales that are read aloud by the site.  To get to World Book you can click here or go to the World Book button at the top of the blog.  Type in "eaglecliffshome" as the user name and eagles is our password.  Next, go to the Early World of Learning, Welcome to Reading,  and then to the Story Corner.  Ask your child, they can get you there!  Happy reading!

In class, we have also been listening to different fairy tales on the ipads.  We have a subscription to an app called Speakaboos.  The app is free and you can try out 3 stories.  If you purchase a subscription to Speakaboos for $4.99 a month you have access to hundreds of animated ebooks.  The subscription includes not only fairy tales, but nursery rhymes, songs, and other stories.  As an early reading teacher, I love that the books highlight the words as it is read aloud.  Check it out!

Happy St. Patrick's Day!

We had such a lucky day on March 17th....magical even! Our day started with evidence of a leprechaun visit! There were green footprints, glitter, and notes written right on the desks! But the most magical was the hats! Let's back up...Friday before St.Patrick's we received a mysterious legend about decorating leprechaun hats.

We decided to give it a try!  So, each student decorated a cup as a leprechaun hat.  The legend turned out to be true.  When the students got to school Monday, the hats had shrunk to leprechaun size!  Amazing!  Lucky the Leprechaun left us a note.  He thanked us for not setting traps and rewarded us by leaving golden treats and the shrunken hats.  The children had also left him notes, so he answered their questions by writing on the desks.  That sneaky leprechaun left a bit of a mess...he even turned the toilet water green...but the children didn't mind a bit!

While a visit from a leprechaun is very hard to top, the rest of St. Patrick's day was filled with learning and fun.  We mixed colors to make different shades of green, then painted giant clovers.  We also wrote poems about having "All the Luck."  We even read a well known Irish Folktale, Clever Tom and the Leprechaun.

For math, we sorted out a bag of Lucky Charms and then graphed the number of marshmallows.  Each student counted and recorded the data from his/her sample, then we shared and complied all our data to figure out how many of each marshmallow in the entire box of Lucky Charms.  This data compilation required the students to use their knowledge of place value to add double digit numbers.  The students were fabulous collaborative problem solvers.  Of course, after all that hard work we got to eat the cereal.  Yes, a lucky day indeed!