Discovering in the Rain

St. Patricks Day

Having some Irish heritage, I of course have to celebrate big on St. Patty's day. Our classroom had so much fun reading an Irish legend about the gift of Blarney, making hats for leprechauns, writing How to's on how to trap them and building traps with their buddies. While we didn't catch any leprechauns this year they left our classroom in quite a mess, took all the gold, left rainbow treats, and shrunk our hats. It was a fun day for the students to really use their imagination and creativity to build their traps.

Readers Workshop:

This week we took a look at new author, Peter Reynolds. We are starting an author study for our next reading unit. This is a great way for students to be inspired by famous children's book authors. Each K/1 class is picking an author to study, at the end of the unit we are going to have a fun read-a-thon celebration. This week we read the story Ish and talked about how the characters in this story were feeling. Ask your child about the character Ramone!

Writers Workshop: We finished our opinion writing last week. Students ended the week by writing their own opinion piece. Many students were able to write their opinion, give multiple reasonings, and restate their opinion with a great ending. The students really grew as writers throughout this unit. They were able to add more and more to their writing. Our next unit will be persuasive writing. Ask your child to read their opinion piece to you!

Science: We just received our new science kit, ORGANISMS. Students brainstormed with their partners last week what do living things need to survive. In the next couple of weeks students will take a closer look at seeds and different plants. We also will learning about two types of fish, snails, and a variety of bugs. This is a fun unit for students to take a closer look at organisms.

Since Friday was the first day of spring the students wrote about some signs of spring. We then had a special guest, Baby Eadlyn!!! The students read about about the first signs of spring to Eadlyn

Forestry/Garden Club:

This was our first forestry day. We will have a lesson each month for our fabulous forestry/ garden club teachers Jana Robbins and Kim Blakemore. We learned about organisms in the forest (peppi's park). The students sang a great little song about " Is it living, does it eat, breath, and grow?" This is a great conversation to have with your child about what things are living/organisms we see each day.

Geography: This week we studied Turkey. Students learned about paper marbling and were able to taste test a few turkish foods. The students tried pita bread, hummus, tzatziki, and carrot/raison salad. We also watched a video on how these foods were made. Ask your child which one they liked the best and maybe try it at home.

Star Student: Zoe is our Star Student this week. Zoe has been very welcoming and a great friend to students in our class. This week I saw her working with new friends and showing them new works. Zoe also has been challenging her self in readers and writers workshop. She has moved up reading levels and is continue to try and write more and more! She has really been a welcoming and supportive friend to our classroom and school community. Keep up the great work Zoe!