MB's Multi 1-2 Classroom News
Edition 9
February 14th Tons of Heart Fun!
This coming Wednesday on February 14th, Valentine's Day, our favorite students will be taking part in the annual WES Jump A Thon from 8:55-9:45 am in the gym! All are invited to attend!!! If your family has decided to collect donations for the American Heart Association, please make sure your child brings in their envelope on or before this Wednesday. The students have been working on their jumping skills and discussing how to stay heart healthy with Ms. Calo during Phys Ed. CORE times over the past few weeks.
After lunch the students will be passing out their Valentines and having a treat and healthy snacks at our Valentine's Day Buffet. Thanks for the supplies and set up help! As always your assistance with our special events is appreciated. This is a student only event, but no worries, we have some more family events coming up in the next few months. More info. will follow.
I am attaching a photo of the Valentine list in case your student has misplaced it. Hopefully Shannon and her Emelia will be joining us, FYI!
Speaking of Heart Healthy...
Thank You Nicholas and Family for sending in the veggies for us to snack on!
AMAZING POLAR ANIMAL INTRODUCTION!
Welcome to the WOW!
Witness the first few moments of working with the amazing virtual goggles Mrs. Cryer has made possible for our students. The students are viewing the Arctic and Antarctic via a virtual field trip using the Google Expedition app. One of our STWEAM studies during January and February is the study of polar animals and the characteristics which help the animals to survive. We are also working on mapping and land formations at the same time, as well as why winter is cold and why snow is white. Many thanks to the Mystery Doug/Science videos, Mrs. Cryer and the amazing virtual goggles, and our sharp minds, we are delving into a compare and contrast study of polar life with a special emphasis on polar bears and penguins.
Polar Bear~Penguin Compare Contrast
The students listened to and discussed the book "Polar Bears and Penguins A Compare Contrast Book" . Then they thought and talked with a partner. Partners dictated polar bear and penguin facts which were recorded on chart paper. No facts could be repeated. This was a challenge after the first five or so partner teams shared. So we went back into the text, did some close reading, and found the evidence-more facts! These facts will be used along with others, which will be generated through another process and the book "North Pole South Pole", for individual student created polar bear~penguin trioramas. We also furthered the discussion of hemispheres using a globe.
Snow Babies
Students watched a Mystery Doug/Science video answering, with scientific facts and reasons, the question "Why are baby animals so cute?" As a whole group we then brainstormed and discussed the baby animal CUTE characteristics. After, the whole group split up into small teams (thank you TEAMSHAKE app!) and read a portion of the book "Snow Babies", featuring polar animals. Individuals then recorded in writing and illustration, facts about one polar snow animal baby, into their I Wonder Journals.
Why is Snow White?
Students also had the chance to learn many cool facts about snow and winter via two more Mystery Doug/Science videos. The videos spurred on lots of discussion about why winter is cold and summer is warm, as well as the fact that snow is really the layering of ice crystals. The discussion about snow lead to two fun experiments to create snowflakes. One was done by creating a layering of crystals using Borax, water, pipe cleaners, string, a marker, and a cup. Another was made using snow flake templates, glue and waxed paper. Check out a few of the snowflake results below. All of the snowflakes will be featured soon on our class website.
SNOW CRYSTAL LAYERS~SNOW FLAKE TEAMS!
Speaking of Snow...
We finally had the chance to have SNNNNOOOOOWWWWWW much fun out at recess. Even though it wasn't always possible to have outside recess, we did manage to have some fun on the amazing snow piles. Keep making sure to send in all of those winter clothes for our recess time fun: coat, snow pants, boots, mittens/gloves, hat!
Speaking of Fun and Excitement...
During writing workshop students have been working on editing writing. They have put together an editing kit with green, red, and blue pens, sticky notes, and a mechanical pencil. We have begun the discussion of the use of these tools. Next week we will be developing success criteria for using the editing kits in our everyday writing. We also have discussed editing our feh sentences into wow sentences, using some of MB's writing! Not all of our sentences need to be WOW, but we should have a few in every piece of writing. A review of adding in edited sentences with a spider leg also happened. Soon we will be ready to publish a piece of our writing and cull out our Writer's Notebooks from the first half of the year, of the work completed while being writing and illustrating wonders, and get ready for the second half! Students who were interested in preparing and submitting a piece of their own writing to the Literary Achievement Awards also reviewed their writer's notebooks and took home a submission form and a piece of writing if they wanted to.
Speaking of Wonderful Authors and Illustrators...
Matt Tavares surprised us with an amazing note about our reading response bulletin board inspired by his book "Red and Lulu" . The note will be photocopied and placed onto each reader/artists' response. Thank you Mrs. Fox for letting Matt T. know about our work, and what huge fans we are of his books!
Daily 5 CAFE
Daily, haha, our Daily 5 CAFE literacy workshop continues to run so well and smoothly, and successfully! Daily, we are becoming even better readers, writers, listeners, and communicators. Students have had the chance to take a photo of their good fit book choices from January. Thank you classroom volunteers Aiden and Grammy Chabot for your help with this, and our own Camden and Zoe! Students have chosen one book to give a good fit book award too. This time around, besides reading it and giving it a sticker, they are also doing a wicked cool idea, thanks to a reminder from Mrs. Cryer, using our beloved, haha again, See Saw app. Students will have a photo taken with their good fit book pick, they will then record a review of the book and state why they think the book is one which someone else might want to choose as their own good fit book, and read. This is then posted to their See Saw journal page. Then a QR code is made of the recording. Next the QR code is printed and taped onto the back inside cover of the book. When students are shopping for good fit books, they may now not only look for the golden good fit book sticker awards, but they may also listen to the review using an ipad. AMAZING!!!! Syerra was the first customer, haha for a third time, and she did an great job. Soon January and February Daily 5 CAFE photos of students diligently at work, will be posted onto their See Saw journals, and the class website. Be prepared to check it out soon. Don't forget to comment!!! WE LOVE COMMENTS!!!!!