Buckaroo news for February 23rd to 26th

It was great to finally have four days in a row with my little ones!  Hopefully this weather will break this weekend and we will be on our way to Spring!  Here is a snapshot of our week.  In Word Study, we learned about /ight/, /oa/ and /ow/.  In Writer's Workshop, I assessed the children's writing progress by giving them the same prompt that was given at the beginning of the year.  Prior to them writing, I passed out their piece of writing from the first week of school.  They were shocked at how they used to write and there was a great deal of laughter as they looked at this writing.  They all agreed that they have truly grown as writers.  We will spend the next couple of weeks in a fun study about snowmen.  We will be writing how-to booklets and learning all we can about everything snowmen.  In science, we are embarking on our study of matter.  In math,  we have finished up adding tens and ones and have begun our final study of tens and ones but this time we will be subtracting tens and ones.  In Reader's Workshop, we are continuing to learn how to make meaningful connections.

Read Across America begins next week!  The children are very excited about this and can't wait to get started.  All of the information about this fun week is coming home today with your child.  We will be collecting canned and boxed food for the Mid Ohio Food Bank.  This will be a friendly competition next week to earn icons.  In order to earn certain icons each day, we have to have at least 75% participation.  We figured out that that would be about 17 people each day participating.  

Related Arts next week:  Monday - P.E.  Tuesday - Art  Wednesday - Music  Thursday - Library  Friday - P.E.

These boys are crunching ice in a bag.  This is a matter experiment.  We had to find our own idea to melt the ice first.  We couldn't put them next to lamps or stuff that is plugged into the wall.  If your bag leaked, you were disqualified:).  Whoever got their bag of ice melted won.

These girls are using the blanket on the reading bench to melt the ice. 

They were hugging to melt the ice because it was warm.  These boys got disqualified because the bag got a leak:).

Some kids put their bag of ice up to the window to melt it by the sun.

In P.E. we got three 5's in a row for trying hard, running for ten minutes without stopping, giving compliments, and no reminders.   We voted for what kind of party we wanted because we earned it for getting three 5's in a row and  the most votes were for an electronic/crafting party because some people don't want to rot their brains ( I love this!!!)  We may also have cookies that we bake.  I have decided that we will do this next Thursday.  Please talk with your child about your expectations for taking care of this electronic device while at school.  We cannot be responsible for items that are broken and such.  If your child wants to bring in a crafting item such as Rainbow Looms, stickers, duct tape, etc. please feel free to send them in on this day.

This poster is a special poster about Read Across America and it tells about all of the spirit days.  

Buckaroo news for February 9th to 13th

Happy Valentine's Day!!!  I know it's a day early but we all celebrated in a huge way today and had a blast!  This post, once again, is a bit picture heavy:).  I just can't help post the great learning and fun we have at Camp Buckaroo!  Here is a snapshot of our week:
In word study, we focused on the long /o/ vowel patterns of /ow/ and /oa/.  Each word study group had their own focus.  When they write their words three times each and do rainbow words for practice, my hope is that they will practice at home as well.   Our writer's workshop became Valentine's Workshop this week as we wrote a Valentine for each of our peers in our class.  The children loved doing this and adding a personal touch to each and every one of them.  In science, we ended our study of penguins by writing six facts about them in our journals.  I hope that you'll take a moment to look at these wonderful journals when they come home with your child next week.  They are officially penguin experts:)  In math, we've been adding strategies to our "tool box" of strategies.  We learned how to use a hundred chart to add in groups of ten.  We also used base-10 blocks as a strategy to add groups of ten onto a given number.  Several are already doing this mentally and it's amazing to see them thinking and applying these complicated concepts.  Next week, we will be subtracting tens.  In reader's workshop, we are honing our skills to make meaningful connections to the books we're reading and not just making superficial connections that really don't help us to understand what we're reading.  

Next week's schedule:  Monday - NO SCHOOL (this time I'm right about this:)   Tuesday - Music   Wednesday - Library   Thursday - P.E.   Friday - Art

This is just a small part of the huge paper chain that wrapped itself around our room.  They worked fantastically as a team to create this and they were so proud when it was finally hanging up.

Buckaroo news for February 2nd-February 6th

Happy Friday!  Valentine's Day is almost upon us and I wanted to put this message closer to the top of my blog post:).  The children are in the process of making their own handwritten Valentines for each other rather than buying them.  These heartfelt notes will be treasured by them because each one will be made with great love and care.  I've had past students come back to tell me that they still have their box with the Valentine's inside and that they still read them to this day!  Our celebration will be the afternoon of February 12th.  
In Word Study, we continued to learn about the long /a/ patterns of /ay/, /ai/ and /eigh/.  In Writer's Workshop, we finished up our study of punctuation in time to edit our own persuasive letters to each other.  On Thursday, each child was asked to write a persuasive letter to a future first grader on why they will love first grade!  I will post these on Progress Book sometime next week.  Today, we kicked off the next four days of Valentine's Workshop.  As stated above, each child will be making a Valentine for each of the children in our class.  If you have any fun stickers, spongy stickers, anything fun and crafty that you'd like to get rid of to use to decorate our Valentine's just send it in on Monday:)).  In science, we learned about WHY penguins are so…well, pleasantly plump and how they keep warm.  See the picture below to read about what the children had to say about our experiment.  We also had a second visit from someone that works at the Columbus Zoo to tell us about polar bears.  Next week, we will begin collecting Pennies for Polar Bears as a conservation effort to help out these white, furry friends.  More information coming next week.  In math workshop, we finished up Topic 9 which was comparing numbers to 100 and have taken the pre-assessment for Topic 10 which is a continuation of tens and ones.  I have been attaching homework to the workouts of any students that need more experience with the lesson concepts taught that day.  In reader's workshop, we compared two fictional stories about penguins using a venn diagram.  

This is a reminder from our PTO:
SCE PTO presents "Family Game Night” held at Scottish Corners on Friday, March 6 from 6:30 – 9:00pm.  Enjoy dinner from LaRosa’s and free Bingo with lots of great prizes.  Keep your eye out for flyers to pre-order dinner coming home with students soon.  You won’t want to miss this fun-filled family event!

I have several coming for conferences next week.  If you have forgotten your time, please let me know.

Our schedule for next week:  Monday - Art   Tuesday - Music   Wednesday - Library  Thursday - P.E.   Friday - NO SCHOOL!

This girl looks like Princess Leah from Star Wars!

This boy is saying "AAAAAYYYYY" like the Fonz.  How many of you remember what show he starred in???  Yes, I am that old that I would know:))

This boy is reading the new penguin book that we got from Dury, someone's grandpa in our room.  I accidentally typed the child's real name and all of the children caught my mistake immediately and told me to take the name off!  Internet safety at work in Room 118!

We are doing an experiment.  This person is putting her hand in a blubber glove and the other two fingers that we touched the penguins with are covered in Vaseline.  The Vaseline was the waterproofing like the waterproof feathers of a penguin.  We stuck them in freezing cold water. The blubber glove kept our hand warmer than our fingers.  Penguins are pleasantly plump because their blubber keeps them warm.  We think Santa stays warm because he is fat like a penguin and has blubber.  Mrs. McNeal told us not to splash the water out but then she spilled all of the water out when the tub broke and Mr. Graham had to come and clean it up. 

They are doing the same thing as the picture above.

In indoor recess, we built this big, block hotel with all the different colors of teddy bears in it sorted in a row.  

This girl is working on one of her persuasive letters while sitting on one of our awesome chairs.

We are having a person talk about polar bears from the Columbus Zoo.  We wrote what we needed to learn about polar bears in our journal.  One way we can help them is by recycling.  We can also plant trees, watch TV less, play computer games less, turn lights off, walk or bicycle more often, use recycled bags, and be a conservationist.  

Polar bears weigh as much as twelve first graders.  They are fat with small ears and small tails.  They have big claws and big, sharp teeth.  They like to play with toys.  February 27th is National Polar Bear Day.  On this day, turn your thermostat down 2 degrees.  

This boy is holding a real polar bear claw.  They didn't just pull it out when it was alive.  It was from one that had already passed away.  

She was so proud that she wrote a whole bunch of stuff about polar bears in her journal.

This sweet girl is holding up the book that we just finished!  It was a reminder that we will be exchanging the Valentines that we've made for each other next Thursday afternoon.  I am asking that each child make something at home in which to hold their Valentines.  You and your child can be as creative as you wish or have time for.  It can be as simple as decorating a bag or covering a shoebox or cereal box with paper.  You can begin sending them in on Monday if you work on it this weekend.  

This is the mountain of blankets that kids from our class collected to give to the homeless people.