Poetry Picnic April 27, 2012

Table of Contents for Poetry Notebook

1. Haiku 2. Nature poem 3. What if 4. Book Spine Poem 5. List Poem - things to do if 6.I am poem and picture 7. What I want the world to know about me 8. 15 words or less 9. I'm sorry 10. The Best Part of Me

My Animoto Video

My Animoto Video

My Animoto Video

My Animoto Video

Poetry Invitation

April is National Poetry Month. It is a month of celebrating the reading and writing of poetry. Each week I will post an invitation that you have a week to respond. This week is about writing a list poem.

When you have written your poem just write in the the comment section and we will repost all the poems at the end of the week.

INVITATION

LOOK AT AN OBJECT IN A DIFFERENT WAY. READ THE FOLLOWING POEM TO GET THE IDEA.

THINGS TO DO IF YOU ARE A COW

Graze on a hillside meadow

dotted with dandelion suns.

Breathe in the sweet smell of clover

and freshly mown hay.

Flick flies away with your tasseled tail.

Feel summer days pass by

like silk over silver.

Moo and chew

and chew and moo.

Relax…

enjoy

your grand green view.


Elaine Magliaro
FROM

Jillson's Sugarhouse

Cookie - by Tessa

I bite into the sweet
soft dough.
It lays inside my mouth.
The thin layer of Lemon
frosting dissolves in
one big GULP!
Soft melting chocolate
melts and oozes down my throat.
Gone forever.
Lovely tasting cookie
I'm thankful for the treat.

Jamie Hogan - Post

Our recent visitor, Jamie Hogan, wrote about our class in her recent blog post. Check it out!:
http://www.jamiepeeps.blogspot.com/2012/03/suessian-school-visit.html

Happy Holidays

Leaf identification using Leaf Snap

This is an amazing website for identifying leaves, blossoms, & fruit

Folktale Frenzy October 14, 2011

Folktale Frenzy October 14, 2011

Amazing Month of Reading

An Amazing Start to A

Reading Life

Room 303 is off to an amazing start as readers. After we collected all the data we found that as a class we have read 167 books. Our genre chart looks amazing as well. We learned that poetry, realistic fiction, and fantasy are favorite genres. The least favorite is traditional literature and biographies.

As a result of our data analysis we decided to set a class goal for the month of October. Our class is as follows:

Goal: For the month of October we would like to learn more about traditional literature to be able to make good personal choices about what books to read to meet the requirements.

Plan:

1. Mrs. March teach us about the traditional literature genre.

2. Read books of that genre during the weeks of October. READ LIKE A WRITER!

3. Write observations about what we are learning from our observations of the text and illustrations.

Favorite Books for September

The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick ( Caldecott winner)

All the Broken pieces by Ann Burg ( historical fiction told in verse)

The Book Most People Want to Read

Wonderstruck By Brian Selznick

Learning to be scientists - September

Learning the Work of Scientists on PhotoPeach

What is a Scientist?

In an effort to get to know one another and to learn how to work in a team, we began our first inquiry question - What is a scientist?

This question became a firestorm of new questions:
What do scientist do?
What kind of scientist are there?
Can anyone be a scientist?
How so scientists learn about things?

Our discussions led us in many directions with differing ideas.  We decided the only way to really understand our questions is to begin the year doing the work of a scientist.  For the upcoming weeks we will be involved with the The Private Eye method that engages us in the skills of observation and thinking by analogy.  The purpose of The Private Eye is to "develop the interdisciplinary mind: Hands-on thinking skills, creativity, literacy, and scientific literacy."

On Friday, we organized our Private Eye notebooks and learned how to use a loupe, with the help of Mrs. Giese and Mrs. Piker.  We learned about 5 basic patterns in nature and sorted our nature objects into pattern groups.  The room was a buzz with what the students were discovering under the loupes.  Spirals, branching, explosions, spheres, and packing patterns popped in front of our eyes.

Beginning next week we will work on writing analogies and drawing.  My goal for the students is to develop the main habits of the artist/scientist:  developing a sense of wonder in looking closely at an object and thinking by analogy.  I am also looking to develop an understanding of best effort, focus, and following directions.  Our student bloggers will be posting our work and progress.

The First Week of School: Learnings from Pete the Cat

Pete the Cat, our class mascot, welcomed 24 students to Room 303.  Pete has his own story that we all enjoyed the first day of school.  Pete teaches us a lesson - the importance of  having a positive attitude in the face of small challenges and disappointments. Pete keeps going along singing his song and reminds us, "It's all good!"  With Pete's wisdom at hand we have been working on creating a classroom community that will inspire us to learn and collaborate with each other.

We spent the week talking about learning, having good habits to help us learn, what it means to be smart, the importance of respect and collaboration/cooperation. This year we will be working on becoming more responsible about our learning and behavior.  The theme of the year will be the Freedom to Learn. During week 2 we will be working on the agreements to make it all work.

Freedom to Learn

In this classroom you are given as much freedom as possible to make your own decisions about your learning.

Freedom comes from taking responsibility for your own learning and behavior.

There are basically 3 Rules:

1.            Everyone will be respectful at all times.

2.          The Classroom is a place for learning.

3.          Our core values extend outside the classroom.

As a class we need to develop procedures/ritual to make the rules work.  They will become our working agreements. 

In the next couple of weeks the students will be keeping up with the blog telling you about what we are learning and doing.  Look for student work, photos, and words of wisdom.

 

Poetry Picnic

Poetry Picnic May 2011 on PhotoPeach

Family Night June 2011

Graduation 2011 on PhotoPeach

Kids Helping Kids

In room 303 we have talked about the earthquake, tsunami, and power plant explosion in Japan. We thought that this was a very unfortunate event so we thought that we could help them in some way. When we read Sadako and a Thousand Paper Cranes we learned  that in Japan when something goes wrong that the people make paper cranes. We decided to use the same tradition and use our origami skills to make paper cranes in paper boxes. We thought that by making and selling these we could raise money to give to the American Red Cross to help kids in Japan. We will be selling them after school many different times and during our Family Night. We will be selling these for $3.00. We hope you will help us in raising money. Thank You!!!
Mary and Hannah

Happy Poetry Month

Celebrate national Poem In Your Pocket Day on Thursday, April 14, 2011!
The idea is simple: select a poem you love during National Poetry Month then carry it with you to share with classmates, family, and friends.
Poems from pockets will be unfolded throughout the day with events in parks, libraries, schools, workplaces, and bookstores.SPREAD THE NEWS!!!!!!!!!!

For the lover of animals

I think many of you will love this website, enjoy.
http://www.zooborns.com/