Happy 50th Day of School!!!!

Mousterpiece

One of my favorite activities to do with the kiddos is read a book followed by a fun craft! This week I read the book Mousterpiece and then we created our own "masterpiece." We did a draft on regular white paper and then our final masterpiece on white card stock. 

To create their masterpiece I gave each table a tray of yellow, red, and blue paint. We discussed how to mix these primary colors to create secondary colors. They did a GREAT job making secondary colors as a group! There wasn't one "argument" about mixing colors which  shows me that they have developed amazing team work skills (using a calm and pleasant tone when disagreeing, etc.)!      

Slime Time!

For our science experiment this week I decided it would be fun to make slime! I had no idea what I was getting myself into, but it looked like something our kiddos would love and enjoy doing. It was a very simple recipe... we mixed together 1 TSP of Borax and 1 CUP water in a small bowl. Then we mixed together 1/2 CUP water and 1/2 CUP white liquid glue in another small bowl. Lastly we mixed the two small bowls together and TA DA we had slime! :)  

Retelling Stories

The Very Hungry Caterpillar...

Retelling stories is extremely important in improving children's reading comprehension skills, making inferences, understanding story structure, and increasing vocabulary. It also allows them to become more engaged in the reading process.  

When searching for creative ways to retell stories I found this amazing blog that had taken popular children stories and created clip art of important parts of the story. The two books I chose for our class to retell this week was The Very Hungry Caterpillar and Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See. 

To start this process of retelling I wrote retelling on the board. I asked my students, "what does retelling mean?" "Do you notice any words within retelling that you know?" They pulled out tell and then I pulled out the prefix re-. We talked about other words that had re- in it. For example re-do. Then we talked about what the word tell means. They did a fabulous job defining retelling once we broke the word apart! 

Before I read The Very Hungry Caterpillar, I asked students to pay close attention to details. I then read the book twice. Once I was done reading I called on students to come up to the front of the room and retell us the story using the clip art! They were a bit shy at first, but once I helped them out a bit they did a wonderful job! Everyone had a great time and it was fun to see them become little story tellers. Each of them added a little twist to the story!

Greater Than, Less Than

This week we are focusing on greater than and less than in mathematics. To help my kiddos master this skill I have found and created several exciting activities. We have discussed greater than and less than during calendar rotations for several weeks, but this is our first week having it as a focus in mathematics!

(1) Alligator Greater: 

Before beginning this activity I had students create their own alligator mouth. I believe it's important that students create a "product" in an activity in order to develop a deeper meaning. Students absolutely loved having the freedom and sharing their creative alligators with each other. Once they created their alligator mouth we briefly went over how to "play" the activity.  

Students were partnered up based on ability level. Partners received an "Alligator Greater" worksheet and a bowl of goldfish. One partner placed goldfish in the ponds while the other  had to decided which pond had more goldfish for the very hungry alligator. 

October Fun!

The Apple Works