Buckaroo News for April 20th - 24th

Well, it's truly been an exciting week because of Springtacular!  The children have been watching the decorations go up and the huge baskets of goodies delivered.  I hope to see you here tonight at SCE for this annual event!
Instead of giving you a snapshot of our week in MY words, I will let the captions (dictated by the students) and photos speak for themselves:)  

Jes Aldin has graciously taken on the role of Room Coordinator for our final party.  She would like to extend the invitation to any of you who would like to help out with this event on June 2nd.  Her email address is  jesaldin.gmail.com.

Since this is my first year doing a blog instead of a paper newsletter, I'm curious as to your thoughts on how you liked it.  I am open to suggestions!  More pics, less teacher-talk.  Less pics, more teacher-talk.  Shorter?  Length was fine?  You can shoot me an email or include your thoughts in the comment section on this post.

Our Schedule next week:
Monday - Music     Tuesday - Library   Wednesday - P.E.   Thursday - Art   Friday - Music

Upcoming Important Dates:
April 24th - Springtacular at SCE
April 27th - Scholastic Book Orders are due if ordering
April 30th - Art Show at SCE 6:00-7:30
May 7th - Literacy Night at SCE  
May 15th - SuperGames
May 25th - Memorial Day - No School
May 26th - Expected hatch day for our chicks!!!!!!
May 28th - Our Class Musical - Begins at 2:40 - You won't want to miss this!
June 2nd - Last day of school and our End-of-Year celebration

We were getting ready for Market Day.  We had a lot of stuff to do.  L. and B. were holding up something that they made to advertise for face painting.  We were learning about goods and services.  This was a service.

G. is holding a jellyfish that she made for Market Day.  Her team, for Market Day, were called the Splatters and they made lots of art.  Her art was very cute!  They worked really hard on this.  

We all made Contraction Crocodiles.  Contractions are words like I'm, it's, and what's.  We even have a song about Contraction Crocodile.  

She is holding an octopus and she is also holding a bag of fake money.  She is shopping on Market Day.

L. is painting C.'s face.  It is a giraffe.  L.'s team was Art Girls.  

V. and F. are buying art and E. is selling the art.  

T. is holding art that he bought.

S. is doing C.'s hair in a mohawk.  

A. is doing S.'s face painting.  It is a butterfly.

Y. is counting the money and it is $24.00.  This business sold massages.

C. got face paint as a robot by L.  The face paint looks like it is coming off but it really isn't.  

We are planning for making paths for our motion study.  Our inspiration came from a video clip that you can find on ok go rube goldberg vimeo.

A. and A. are making a tube that is coming through the finished work shelf and we tested it and it worked the first time.

F. and A. are making a tunnel that shoots the marble and knocks the Jenga pieces and dominoes down.  If you look real close you will see a family next to the Jenga pieces.  When they tested it, they figured out they needed to take away two Jenga pieces at the front to make it work.

Buckaroo news for April 13th to April 17th

I hope that all of you are able to take advantage of the beautiful weather this weekend!  Great weekend to begin a garden:)  Speaking of gardens, we will be planting our own garden here at SCE and you will be able to come throughout the summer and enjoy it's bounty.  We took a peek at it today and noticed strawberry leaves and runners throughout the garden.  The children were very excited about the prospect of having fresh strawberries!  
Here is a snapshot of our learning this week:
We are learning many songs for our upcoming program.  I can assure you that you are NOT going to want to miss this program of songs at the end of the year (see date below).  In word study, we learned about plurals and how adding /s/ and /e-s/ to the ends of nouns changes the meaning to more than one.  We also learned about silly plurals.  Ask your child about these.  In writer's workshop, we used our facts from our sticky note research to write them in report form.  Next week, we will be learning about another type of informational writing called How-To writing.  Once we've experimented with this type of writing, each child will either choose to write their informational text as a report with sticky notes or as a How-To.  In social studies, we have continued our study of economics by looking at goods, services, producers and consumers.  Next week, we will be applying our knowledge of economics by having a Market Day.  The children have already established teams and we've talked about possible goods and services each team could create or provide.  Next week they will be going into "production" and then we will have a market as they purchase each other's goods and services.  No CREDIT CARDS accepted:)  In Reader's Workshop, we have been exploring nonfiction conventions and how they help the reader.  We've already found examples of title pages, tables of contents and key words.  Having these tools in our "reading arsenal" will help us when it comes to researching a topic of choice in the upcoming weeks.  In Math, we have been working on our graphing skills.  

I have fantastic news about hatching chicks!  We have someone willing to take our chicks and we even have a back-up person just in case we need them!  Thank you so much for putting out feelers for this upcoming project as it is one that they will never forget.  I've hatched chicks for many years but it's always a miracle and a true test of faith each time to see life spring forth from those little eggs!  

Here is our specials schedule for next week:
Monday - Art   Tuesday - Music  Wednesday - Library  Thursday - P.E.  Friday - Art

Upcoming Important Dates:
April 24th - Springtacular at SCE
April 27th - Scholastic Book Orders are due if ordering
April 30th - Art Show at SCE 6:00-7:30
May 7th - Literacy Night at SCE  
May 15th - SuperGames
May 25th - Memorial Day - No School
May 26th - Expected hatch day for our chicks!!!!!!
May 28th - Our Class Musical - Begins at 2:40 - You won't want to miss this!
June 2nd - Last day of school

On Tuesday, Japanese moms came to do a show for us.  One student said that he didn't know how they put the pictures on so fast.  We think it took practice.  

She told us about these statues but we can't remember the names of them.  They taught us how to count one to nine in Japanese and they told us a glow-in-the-dark story.

This story is about Grandma and Grandpa selling bamboo hats to get money to eat and feast for a new year but he didn't sell the hats for money.  He put them on the Jeso statues.  He had no food for the feast but that night Jeso statues delivered a box of food and a kimono for them.  The hats were for New Year.

These girls are playing a game called Soldiers and General and they are saluting the general and the general is supposed to add the numbers of the cards added up together and they then have to guess what their number is.  They can't peek at their number.  If they guess their number first they get both cards.  Whoever has the most at the end of the game wins the game.  They are not just playing they are learning math too.  

If they get a face card, it equals 11 and that is what you were sending in all of the cards for.

We started Market Day and we are making a list of things we can do or make in the classroom to sell.

Working together as a team to determine if they were have a product or a service:)

We are so excited about this upcoming study!!!

Buckaroo news for April 6th-10th

Believe it or not, we only have about seven and a half weeks of school left!  Where did the time go?  The kiddos know that I don't want to talk about it because it makes me sad that they will be leaving me soon but there are some upcoming events that I want to make you aware of as we end the year.  See the schedule of upcoming events below.
Here is a snapshot of our week of learning!  In word study, we worked hard to learn how to use /tion/ and /sion/ in words.  This was a challenging study but as soon as I say the word "challenge" they perk up!  I've also assessed each student one last time on word features.  It is the same assessment I gave in the fall and again in January to determine word study teams.  Due to this re-evaluation of your child's needs in word study, we've changed teams.  They are very excited!  In writer's workshop, we have begun to study our last form of writing which is informational writing.  We've been singing songs about endangered animals with one of them being the giant panda.  We decided to research this information.  We are doing this as a whole class to learn how to read informational text and to use the internet effectively to learn and record facts onto sticky notes.  We then worked together to organize our notes to then use to write a cohesive report of what we've learned.  Soon, each child will get to self-select a topic of choice in which to research.  In social studies, we have begun our study of economics.  We began by talking about needs and wants and then moved on to consumers and producers.  We will talk more about this next week and then move on to a study about motion.  In math, we finished up telling time to the hour and half-hour today and will begin graphing and using data to answer questions.  In reader's workshop, we will begin to take a closer look at how nonfiction texts differ from fiction texts and the features that nonfiction texts have that help the reader to understand complex information.  
                                 Our Schedule for Next Week:
Monday - P.E.   Tuesday - Art   Wednesday - Music   Thursday - Library   Friday - P.E.
                               Upcoming Events You Don't Want to Miss:
April 24th - Springtacular at SCE
April 30th - Art Show at SCE 6:00-7:30
May 7th - Literacy Night at SCE  
May 15th - SuperGames
May 25th - Memorial Day - No School
May 26th - Expected hatch day for our chicks!!!!!!
May 28th - Our Class Musical - Begins at 2:40 - You won't want to miss this!
June 2nd - Last day of school

This is a Scottish Corners garden on the side of the school but it looked like a big mess.  We cleaned up this garden on Monday, April 6th.  This garden needed help!  We are going to plant vegetable plants in it and on the side so the bugs don't get in we are planting marigolds from last year's seeds.

We found a rabbit's nest in our garden.  

G. is holding up last year's tomato plant.

The green plants are called strawberry plants.  It looks a little like poison ivy because it has three leaves but it's not!  The green stuff is called chlorophyl.  We didn't pull up the strawberry plants because they were already growing.

If you're wondering what that big purple thing is by C. it is her dress.  We cleaned the garden.  This is after we pulled out all of the weeds and tomato plants.  That big wooden thing is called a bed but not the kind of bed you sleep in.  This summer, you are more than welcome to walk over to our garden and help yourself to all of the goodies that are growing there.  

Y. is holding our poster with needs on it.  Needs are something you need to survive.  Needs are things that you need to live like food and water.

This poster has all of our wants on it.  Some wants are Shopkins and stuffed animals.  B. is blocking the poster.  Wants are toys, doughnuts, and candy.  They are things we can live without.  

S. made a 100 out of triangles and squares.  This is a new math game and you have to use pattern blocks to solve the pattern that is on the paper.  S. did the hardest way to do it with triangles.  There are other ones you can do like lovebirds, George Washington's hat and Martin Luther King, Jr.'s two fingers that mean "peace."

Hello Families,

Unfortunately there are not photos for the blog this week.  Lots of learning going on at Camp Buckaroo but I just didn't have my camera ready when those photo opportunities present themselves:).  I have a few big things to start off with first before I share our learning for this past week.

The first is that you may, or may not, have heard that in our final month of school we really immerse ourselves in the life sciences and nonfiction.  The biggest part of that is studying the life of chickens.  I happen to own seven beautiful hens and sharing about their hilarious antics is one of the highlights of the year.  In the past, we have hatched chicks right here in our classroom and then the chicks have gone to a wonderful friend to live out their days.  However, this year they will not be able to take the chicks and I need to always be a responsible pet owner and make sure the chicks have homes before we hatch them.  That being said, if you know of anyone that would be willing to take our week-old chicks when they hatch please let me know right away.  If we don't have anyone by late April, we won't be able to hatch them.  

The second item is that of the upcoming Springtacular.  If you are new to SCE, you won't want to miss this night.  It is CRAZY FUN!!!  Each year, each classroom has a theme basket with goodies inside as part of a raffle.  We are in need of some creative Mom or Dad to create our class basket.  If you are that person, please email Jes Aldin at jesaldin.gmail.com

The last item is pretty exciting.  There is now a parent math resource that is online!  It was created by some of our amazing math coaches.  To access this site, go to https://dcsparentresourcesmath.wiki.dublinschools.net/Home

In word study, we worked on the vowel patterns of /aw/ and /au/.  In writer's workshop, we will begin our study of nonfiction writing next week.  In science, we finished up our study of matter and how matter changes.  I have put your child's assessment score in Progress Book.  Our next study will be life sciences.  In social studies, we will be studying economics, landforms, and mapping.  In reader's workshop, we studied story elements using Bartholomew and the Oobleck as our mentor text.   In math, we finished up our study of measurement using nonstandard units and are moving on to telling time to the hour and half-hour.

Our specials schedule:  Monday - Library   Tuesday - P.E.  Wednesday - Art  Thursday - Music      Friday - Library