Buckaroo News for February 8th to February 18th

Hang onto your hats!  It's going to be a windy one today!  I apologize for no post last week so that means this post will be extra heavy with great pics and information about our learning.  

Here are some highlights to our week:
1.  Your child has a new list of ten words to be studying at home.  The test is planned for Monday.
2.  We are all working on phrasing our reading so our reading sounds like how we talk to each other.
3.  We are working on connecting to the texts we read to ourselves and ones that are read aloud.  We call these "text-to-self", "text-to-text" and "text-to-media" connections.  As you read aloud to your child, allow them to share what they are thinking.  Ask them what kind of connection they are making.
4.  We are beginning a unit on matter with the focus on solids and liquids.  
5.  The children have had a blast measuring things in the room, including me:), using nonstandard units of measurement such as cubes and paperclips.

Our schedule for next week:
Monday - Library (remember book-in-a-bag)
Tuesday - P.E. (remember tennis shoes and I-can attitudes:)
Wednesday - Art
Thursday - Music
Friday - NO SCHOOL for kiddos but I will be here if you want to visit me:)

We are in need of shoeboxes, toilet paper/papertowel rolls, and paper plates.  On our Flexible Fridays, some of the children want to make dioramas to show their learning and we could use some of these things.

We were measuring how tall we were compared to an Emperor penguin.  An Emperor penguin is four feet tall.

She is smaller than an Emperor penguin.  Mrs. McNeal accidentally made the penguin too small so pretend that the feet are touching the ground.

We compared this boy with the penguin and he pretended that he was studying the penguin.  

We are comparing the objects shortest to tallest.  

We are working on Valentines in Valentine's Workshop.  We were all decorating and it was a mess afterwards!  

We were reading and getting better at reading.  We were also getting lost in our books.

We were listening to a story about a monster who couldn't find a friend to play with.  A mom of one of the kids in our class came in to volunteer to read the book to us. 

The Mom's child wanted to say THANK YOU!  The class says THANK YOU too!  

She is pointing at her worm and we were doing our worms longest to shortest.  WE were comparing them because they didn't know if they would be bigger or smaller than another.  We learned a song about an inchworm and Mrs. McNeal loves when we sing it!  Some people put jet packs on their worms.

These boys were sharing their story.  We persevered, collaborated, and shared the book with confidence.

They made a man out of paper and it was a story.  

We were measuring things around the room with cubes.  First we had to make a prediction and then we measured them with cubes.

During indoor recess, the children were watching a movie.  I noticed that they had written on small wipe boards and placed them on the shelf.  They found a purpose for their writing and did this completely on their own!  Authenticity at it's best!