This week...

S C I E N C E


Here are our plants that we planted while studying the needs of living things.  We watched Berenstain Bears:  Grow it, and discussed what the plants need to survive.  Each student had their very own cup of soil and grass seeds.  We watered our plants everyday and gave them sunlight at our window.  We had some test cups that received 1. no water, 2. no sunlight, and 3. no air.  They were SO interested to check out the plants everyday!!!  The students brought their plants home today.  

The lifecycle of  a butterfly has been a big hit with the students.  We started studying this yesterday with a non-fiction book telling us all that we needed to know about the stages.  

• We learned that the butterfly always lays her eggs on leaves because that is the food source for the caterpillar once it POPS from it's egg.  
• We learned that caterpillars shed their skin FOUR times throughout this stage so they can grow, grow, grow.  
• We learned that caterpillars eat ALL DAY.  
• We learned that once caterpillars are ready, they form a chrysalis where they stay for about TWO weeks until they bite through and wiggle out to become a beautiful butterfly.  
• We learned that butterflies smell with their antenna and have a long curly tongue to find nectar.  

After reading our book we played the lifecycle game where we first curled up and pretended we were the egg.  We then popped out of our eggs and wiggled around like caterpillars.  After that, we pulled ourselves into a tight, tight hug to show the chrysalis stage.  Finally, we broke through our chrysalis and fluttered around the classroom with our wings.  When our "wings got tired" we sat and made model lifecycles with paper plates and four types of pasta.  The kids LOVED this activity.  They begged to bring them home but they will be going in our hallway.  I will send them home to enjoy after!  


We watched this video of The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  The kids loved it!  They might want to share with you at home:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpISHA8Fs4w.


We will start the lifecycle of a frog next!

R E A D I N G   &    W R I T I N G


This week in reading, we continued working on the op and ot sounds.  The students practiced finding ot and op words in books, they practiced writing their ot and op words, they practiced listening for ot and op words, and they practiced creating their ot and op words.  


We continued to create images while we reading.  This is a hard concept for the students so the more practice they get with this the better.  This is a strategy to enhance and build comprehension.  When they make pictures while they read, it helps them to understand and remember the book.  We practiced by using our 5 senses and sharing some pictures that we created.  We also used a graphic organizer to put our thoughts on paper.


We finished our story that we started this week.  We focused on stories having a beginning, a middle, and an ending.  We also focused on characters in the story.  Next week, we will continue to edit, revise, and work on quality of ideas.  Writing can be hard for some students so encouragement with writing is always nice.  


In addition to all of that, we reviewed ending punctuation with a white board activity.

M A T H


We finished up chapter three this week with our test and let me tell you.......THEY DID AWESOME!  Such smarties!  I was so impressed and SO, SO, pleased with their hard work.  We started chapter four on Thursday.  This chapter focused on subtraction.  Some key words are take away, minus, and subtraction sentence.  We will continue to use number bonds to subtract and to show the relationship between addition and subtraction.  We focused on taking away to subtract today.  Everyone is off to a great start with this chapter!



C H O I C E    T I M E


I so appreciate the support for changing our choice time routine.  Some activities that students did this week during choice were play dough, building blocks, wiki sticks, fuzzy sticks, dry erase boards, magnets, and puppets.  Below are some images of our choice time this week.   

I hope everyone has a great weekend!!  

Ms. Jervis