Conferences and Voting Day

Parent-Teacher Conferences are this Monday, March 2nd and Tuesday, March 3rd.  I sent home 1 reminder last week and I put 1 reminder in with your child's report card. I look forward to meeting with you to discuss the wonderful accomplishments I see every day!

Tuesday is also Voting Day! Voting will take place at Colchester High School from
7:00 a.m. - 7:00 p.m.  Don't forget to get out and vote!

Valentine's Day in Room 9!

We had so much fun today! We read many valentine books, graphed candy hearts, made words out of a valentine sentence, colored our valentine bags, and celebrated the friends we have in Room 9! Here are some photos from our happy day!

100th Day of School!

Thursday was the 100th day of school.  We did lots of activities that centered around the number 100! Some of our activities included writing a class book about the hundredth day, we completed a number grid puzzle, read a few books about the hundredth day, wrote 100 words we knew, flipped a coin 100 times, made a trail mix snack that had 100 pieces, and decorated our 100th day crowns. Here are some pictures from all of our fun!

Biographies and iPads

We have been busy learning about nonfiction texts and today we started to talk about biographies. Biographies are a special kind of nonfiction book that chronicles the life of someone important.  We made a chart and talked about why people might have biographies written about their lives.  Some ideas that we had were that they could be the first to do something like Amelia Earhart or George Washington.  Leaders often have biographies written about them like Martin Luther King Jr. and Rosa Parks.  Many people make new discoveries like Louise Braille and Thomas Edison.  Special talents are also recognized like Mozart, Elvis, and children's author Mo Willems.  Today we read a biography on Betsy Ross and the students used an iPad app called Educreations to illustrate why they thought she was important and how she helped America.  As the kids worked on iPads, it was so quiet, you could hear a pin drop!! Everyone agreed that Betsy Ross is believed to have sewn the first American flag, but there were a few different ideas about why she has a biography about her.  Some students felt that Betsy Ross had a special talent which was sewing and some students felt that she was the first to make the first American flag.  We had a great dixcussion and the students can't wait to use the iPads again!  Here are some photos from our hnads-on learning!

Gingerbread Houses!

We made foam gingerbread houses today and the students had so much fun! Here are some pictures from our adventure!

Four Winds: Rocks and Minerals

Jen and Bobbi visited our classroom today with Four Winds and they taught us all about rocks and minerals. We talked about the rock cycle and the three different types of rocks -igneous, sedimentary, and metamorphic rocks.  We talked about erosion and how rocks change over many hundreds of years. We did lots of hands experiments including studying various rocks with magnifying glasses, classifying rocks, and we even made our own fossils! Here are some photos from our adventures!

It's Gingerbread Time!

We have started one of my favorite units, Gingerbread!  We are going to read various versions of the this whimsical story so that we can compare and contrast them. We are also working on telling the key story elements such as main character, setting, problem, and solution.  We have talked about new vocabulary words such as brazen, boasted, and sly.  We have a friend named Gingerbread Fred who has joined our class. Hopefully everyone will get to spend some time with him and complete a journal page for the class book we are making!  We are also hoping to earn the chance to build a foam gingerbread house just before vacation!  (I will be  asking for candy donations next week!) The students are very engaged in this unit and they are so excited to read the new gingerbread book each day!!