Dec. 13

It has been a busy few days in our classroom!  The excitement of the holidays is definitely in the air!

Today we had some fun with our gingerbread study!  We have read three stories and have been comparing them as we go.  We have read the Gingerbread Man, The Gingerbread Girl, and Gingerbread Boy: Loose in the School.  We have noticed that each has a similar problem but that the solutions are quite different.  For example in the Gingerbread Man, the cookie runs away from everyone and in the end the problem is solved by a tricky fox eating the cookie (yes we thought this was rather sad....) BUT in the Gingerbread Girl, the she tricks the fox and even becomes friends with him.  We also noticed some repeated phrases in all of the stories.  Although they are similar in that they are little chants, the words are quite different.  We have been recording all these similarities and differences on our classroom Gingerbread House.  Here are a few close-ups of our work:

Tomorrow we will be baking our gingerbread kids!!!  To connect with science, we will discover what happens when we mix liquids and solids and what happens when we bake (does it stay a liquid or become a solid?) .  We will also be doing some graphing when we eat the cookies and finally some descriptive writing about the smell and taste of our cookies!  We can't wait to show it off to you tomorrow!

Coming up:

• Thursday is Red and Green Day!
• Friday is an early dismissal Day
• Report Cards go home Friday!
• We perform a dance at caroling on Friday. Caroling starts at 8:30am.

Dec. 9

As we continue our investigation into liquids, we always seem to end up with more questions than answers. What does molasses move slower than water? Why are some liquids slippery?  Is oil made of water?

Today we compared different liquids by using our senses. We  had to smell, touch, pour, and observe the liquids.  By doing these simple tests on a liquid, we were able to figure out what most of our mystery liquids were.  They were: oil, vanilla, soap, and molasses.  It was so interesting to watch the students so engaged and excited to touch and pour the different liquids.   It was also very funny to see their reactions after smelling molasses. They just couldn't figure out  what it was!

At the end of the lesson we were introduced to the term viscosity.  We learned that the molasses was the most viscous of the liquids that we had due to the larger size of the molecules.  We also learned that we can change the viscosity of a liquid by changing the temperature.  The warmer the liquid, the less viscous.  Of course these are new words and will take some time for the student to master, but we will be using them throughout this unit. 

Lastly,  Parent Council is still looking for a few parents to volunteer as Parent Volunteer Coordinator for our classroom.  If you have received your CBE police clearance and this position would interest you please contact parent council at councils.kennethdtaylor@gmail.com . 

Coming Up:

Gingerbread cookie baking on Wednesday!

Red and Green Day Thursday

Pajama Day next Friday

Next Friday is early dismissal

Winter break starts next Friday!

Dec. 8

We had a busy day of writing, art, and health today!
We worked really hard to get our penpal letters done so that we could send them in the mail tomorrow.  Not only did we write them a letter, but we also painted a cute snowman card for each of our penpals.  Look below to see a few examples of our letters and cards:

This afternoon we read a book called I Wish You More by Amy Rosenthal.  Mrs. Fraser and Mrs. Buonomo asked us to make some wishes to "light up" the gym. We had a great conversation about about wishes that would help others, not only ourselves. It was so touching to hear the thoughtful, kind, and selfless answers that they came up with.

Next week, these light bulbs will decorate our gym for our carolling.   Families are welcome to join us for these times.  Our class will perform one dance but more information to come with dates and times.

We will also have two spirit days next week!  Check below for more information:

Coming Up:

• Gingerbread cookie baking on Wednesday!!
• Red and Green Day Thursday
• Pajama Day next Friday
• Next Friday is early dismissal
• Winter break starts next Friday!

Dec. 7

To further our knowledge and understanding of numbers, we have started to learn about even and odd numbers.  Today we read a funny books called "My Odd Day" in which a student had all sorts of things go wrong, such as his clock only included the numbers 1, 3, 5, 7, 9, and 11 and he only had 1 sock and 1 shoe.  It got us talking about what even and odd meant and how we could test a number to find out.  They quickly discovered that their fingers were a really good tool when they were stuck!

By the end we decided that an even number has a partner or can be split evenly into two groups.  Some students described even numbers as ones that "have a buddy".  We discovered that any number 0, 2, 4, 6, and 8 in the ones place are even numbers.  An odd number wouldn't have a buddy and would be "the odd one out".  These numbers would include a 1, 3, 5, 7, or 9 in the ones place.

To practice this skill we played a fun game called "Slap!". We used a deck of cards without the face cards and placed them upside down.  Here is how we played:

Partners would take turns flipping a card. 

 If the card was even, no one would do anything and it would stay in the pile. 

If it was odd, the first player to slap the odd card would keep it and any cards underneath. 

If they slapped it and it wasn't odd, their partner would get the card and any cards underneath it.

You keep going until all the cards are done. The partner with the most cards wins. 

This game helps students with their math fluency and quick recognition of even and odd numbers. They loved playing it and would love to teach you at home. I will warn you, this game can get loud and very exciting! If you get too into it, you could have a sore hand so maybe play on a softer surface ;)

Dec. 6

It is hard to believe that we are less than two weeks away from the winter break!  I am having a hard time understanding where September, October, and November have gone!!

This week we started a short two week study on different Gingerbread stories. We have a collection of different versions - everything from the traditional Gingerbread Man story to Catch that Cookie, Gingerbread Pirates, and the Gingerbread Girl.  Over the next couple of weeks we will vote on which story we would like to see and then take some time to compare our stories with the others.

We are currently reading the original story so that we have a basis for the characters, repeated words, and storyline.  We have been focussing on not only the problem and solution of the story, but also the critical characters, settings, and objects of the story.  We will use this giant gingerbread house that is on our classroom wall as a template to help us compare these components.

As a way to incorporate math, science and even more writing, we plan to bake cookies next week using a lower sugar, healthier recipe.  There will be no nuts in the cookies.  Please advise if your child has any restrictions with the ingredients below:

 unsalted butter, softened

brown sugar

 unsweetened applesauce

egg

dark molasses

whole wheat flour 

 baking soda

 ground ginger

ground cinnamon

 allspice

 ground cloves

Calories: 56.4 • Fat: 0.8 g • Carb: 12.4 g • Fiber: 5 g • Protein: 0.9 g • Sugar: 6 g
Sodium: 30.3 g  

This recipe does meet the CBE requirements for "choose more often grain" snacks as outlined here: 

With these cookies we will definitely be eating them, but first we will do some sensory writing, looking at the changes before and after baking, and completing some graphing.  We are so excited to use cookies as a learning tool!

Please don't hesitate to email me if you have any questions!

Dec. 5

As promised, here are the results of our experiment!

If you remember, we made a hypothesis about how many drops we could fit on the surface of a penny. Most of us guessed anywhere 3 - 10.  But... we actually got between 16 and 34!  The students were amazed that so many drops could fit on such a small surface. Below shows a bit of the process of our experiment today:

We started by dropping water drop by drop:

  

As we did this, we took a tally of how many drops we added:

 We kept going until the tension became too much for the water.  We learned that depending how forceful we were could change our end result:

 

When we finished we made some observations and recorded what we learned:

 We have really been focusing on understanding the scientific vocabulary. We will continue to review these words through out the unit to ensure that students have a sold understanding of them.  This is a fun activity to try at home.  You could try with different coins to practice estimating as well :)

Coming up:

• book exchange tomorrow

Dec. 1

We had an great day filled with a variety of different activities. We did everything from email to creative movement.  The best part for many of the kids was making an hypothesis and learning this new word.  The students felt so proud to be able to say this scientific word.   We will be regularly using this vocabulary with our science throughout the year.

We also started to learn about another scientific word: surface tension. We started to guess what this word means and through our experiment on Monday we will have a better understanding it.

We began an experiment to see how many drops of water would fit on a penny.  We made a hypothesis as to the number of drops that could fit and why we thought that many could fit.  On Monday we will  test our hypothesis, draw our observations, and record our results.  We will update you on our results.

How many drops do you think will fit?

Coming Up:
Ken Taylor Market tomorrow from 10-3