Tomorrow's lunch will be a Fiesta! I'm not sure if it's mentioned on the lunch menu, but the lunchroom staff told students about it today. Our class will be eating homemade sopapillas on Thursday with Mrs. Holland's class! Yum! Today we read about different kinds of houses in different parts of the world. We also read The Salamander Room and a book about Komodo dragons. We also looked at pictures of Komodo dragons on the internet.

We learned more of the signs for the song The Power of One and practiced some of the other songs we plan to perform for our families at the end of the year. Students read our book, "Seeds," to 3 classmates and they should read it 3 more times this weekend. They made a flower out of seeds for art today.

Today students practiced counting mixed coins. Those who can count by fives and tens had a much easier time with this. With their buddy's help, students used a dictionary to look up the meaning of a new vocabulary word that was from the book The Odious Ogre. In writer's workshop, I'm trying to take students through the entire writing process, from brainstorming topics, to generating ideas, to pre-writing, editing and re-writing a clean copy. This has been VERY difficult. So far only 4 of the 22 students have finished their final copy and some of the more "social" students are still coming up with details. Yikes! The writing standards for next year are going to be far more demanding and I want to prepare them for it.

In sign language, students learned signs to go with our new shared reading called "Seeds." We also learned the beginning of a new song "The Power of One." We're gearing up for a sign language performance on the last day of school. Students worked with table-mates to play a coin recognition game. I also showed students a one dollar and a five dollar bill. They noticed that Abraham Lincoln is on the five dollar bill. I was impressed that they recognized the Lincoln Memorial on the back. Please help me out by making sure your child keeps toys and anything that could be a distraction at home. Thanks so much for supplying the seeds and birdseed!

For a little coin review, we played a game in which each student was given a coin. In the center of the rug, I put index cards with values written in different ways (5 cents, .05, five cents). Students took turns telling the name of their coin, its value, and then they chose an index card with the matching value. They did very well! I had great fun reading The Odious Ogre. The book has lots of big words, but I basically act out books, so the class really understood what was going on. I know this because many of them chose to act out parts of the story afterward, when we were discussing it. On Thursday, each student will be assigned one of the big words to look up in the dictionary (with the help of their 4th grade buddy). On Friday, I will re-read the story and see if they understand it any better.

Today we worked on the _ake chunk. Students brainstormed words such as make, lake, flake, etc. Next, students received Bingo-style game boards with _ake words. They listened as I called out words and covered them. We reviewed the names and values of the penny, nickel and dime, then learned about the quarter. Here are the rhymes we use to help us remember. Penny, penny easily spent. Copper, brown and worth one cent. Nickel, nickel thick and fat. You're worth five cents. I know that! Dime, dime little and thin. I remember--you're worth ten. Quarter, quarter big and bold. You're worth twenty-five I am told.

The jazz band from Lewis and Clark visited our school and played some great music. The best part of their performance was that the band director showed students each instrument and gave us an example of what sound each makes.

Some of the students have really taken the Earth Day message to heart -- they've given up their recesses to pick up garbage. Wow! We had a guest reader today, Joshua S.'s grandpa. We learned about the dime and practiced counting mixed coins. This is difficult because it requires students to switch counting methods. For example, to count 1 nickel and 3 pennies they have to count by 5s then switch to counting by 1s. This will require lots of practice for many students so work on it at home as much as possible. I tell them to begin counting the coins with the highest value. Since we've been learning the parts of a plant, students made flowers in art. They cut and glued petals, stems and leaves.

38 more days of school!

Happy birthday, Joshua S.! Today we reviewed pennies and learned about the nickel. We used a Venn diagram to compare and contrast the two coins. We learned that Thomas Jefferson is on the nickel and that his head is turned the opposite direction than Abraham Lincoln's head on the penny. We reviewed the difference between questions and statements and the punctuation that goes with each. We picked up garbage with our big buddies. I was pleasantly surprised to find very little garbage in the field and in the playground (with the exception of dog poop--yuck!).

Today we learned about the penny. We learned that Abraham Lincoln, the 16th president, is on the front of the penny and that the Lincoln Memorial is on the back of the penny. Tomorrow we will learn about the nickel. Speaking of tomorrow, we will be picking up garbage with our big buddies as an Earth Day project so if your child has gardening gloves they may wish to bring them. Otherwise, I have lots of plastic grocery bags that can be used as gloves.

I guess the cat is out of the bag now. If you were at last night's PTA meeting you heard that I will not be teaching again next year. I am in search of a brand new adventure.

This is Joshua S.'s VIP week and he shared his poster with the class this morning. In math, students worked on a Venn Diagram, comparing and contrasting telling time on an analog versus a digital clock. Tomorrow we will start learning about coins. We read the story "Alexander Who Used to be Rich Last Sunday" about a boy who spent his money on some pretty useless stuff that he thought he "had to have." From the story, we learned the words "absolutely" and "positively." Mrs. Craven read a story to students after lunch and we also used the computer lab to work on the XtraMath web site.

There's no school for students on Monday. See you on Tuesday. Don't forget to turn in your book orders Tuesday.

Today students learned to tell time to the hour. They learned the names of the parts of an analog clock (face, hour hand, minute hand), and, the best part of all, they used small clocks to show me different times that I called out. We read Eric Carle's "The Grouchy Ladybug." When our big buddies arrived, students painted a half paper plate red and used black thumbprints to make the dots. They also wrote about what makes them grouchy. Their big buddies took pictures of the little kids making a grouchy face to be the head on their paper plate ladybug. I have to say they are adorable!

Jasmin is an awesome addition to our classroom. I think she had a good day and I know the rest of the class was excited to have her there. We learned signs for this week's shared reading, "Colorful Eggs." We started our unit on time by talking about AM and PM and what those letters mean. We also learned the difference between analog and digital clocks. Jenasee shared her VIP poster with the class.

Our seats at Alberta Bair were amazing. Last time we went, we sat in the nose bleed section. This time, we were probably 8 rows from the stage. The students were well behaved on the bus and during the show. Our schedule was "off" so students never got to work at centers which bummed them out. Jenasee shared some yummy birthday treats with us. We are getting a new student tomorrow! Her name is Jasmin. I can't wait to meet her!

The letter of the day was S. I read "The Sandwich Swap," a book about learning to try new foods before you decide that you don't like them. We started a new social studies unit on caring for our planet. We talked about the 3 Rs- Reduce, Reuse and Recycle. We also watched a Bill Nye the Science Guy video about recycling.

Have a happy Easter and a restful Spring Break. See you on the 10th!

Today was Jenasee's 6th birthday. We were sure busy for it being a half day! Our letter of the day was R so we made rainbows. We learned the order of the colors on a rainbow. Some students added cotton clouds and I saw that a few students drew pots of gold. Since we've been learning the difference between 2-dimensional and 3-dimensional shapes in math, I thought it would be fun to make some origami shapes. I showed the students how to make a paper balloon, which looks like a cube, and many of them sat down with me to learn to make it. As a whole group, we made origami ravens, like the character from "How Raven Stole the Sun." Students also filled out an April calendar. The purpose of filling out the calendar is to practice counting and writing numbers. We're working hard on getting our numbers facing the right direction.