News from Camp Buckaroo for April 25th to 29th

I can't believe that Sunday is May 1st!  It just doesn't seem possible and shakes me up knowing I only have a few short weeks more with my little ones!  Even on our worst days, I can't imagine my life without them and I hope they will come and visit me over the summer or in the fall.

I will be setting up our incubator over the weekend to get the temperature regulated before picking up the fertilized eggs after school on Monday and then the most exciting part of the year will begin.  The campers and I are sooooo excited!

We have begun practicing the program that we will be performing for you towards the end of the year (date to be announced).  It will be performed on a real stage using real microphones and everything!  Because it is a farm program, I will be sporting a pair of overalls on that day.  I'm asking the children to dress in something farm/western related on that day (again, to be announced soon) but this is optional, of course.

End-of-year assessments will begin on Monday.  I will be sitting with each of the children to listen to them read and to assess if they are effectively and efficiently using the reading skills that we've learned throughout the year.  I will also be assessing their spelling and writing skills.

HIGHLIGHTS OF THE WEEK (that the children might not mention:)

*Learning all we can about chickens to better care for our chicks when they hatch.
*Began a class research project on chickens using diagrams, labeling, and even attempted to write our first perfect paragraphs with a topic sentence and three detailed sentences on that topic.
*We are learning about natural and man-made landforms.
*We have finished up tens and ones by learning to add and subtract using ten-frames, hundreds charts and place-value blocks.

Book orders are due by May 6th if ordering.

No Tinkering Tuesday next week.

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

These are two ladies that work at our school and it was a special day so we made them cards.

One boy and girl thanked them for helping them with their lunches when they left them at home.  

This girl made a card for Mrs. Steagmeier because one time she missed the bus and she called her mom to pick her up.

These children won Read Across America so they got room service brought to them.  It was chocolate milk and a doughnut and we got a coupon for the book fair.  

A group of kids did a RRRREEEEAAAALLLLYYY challenging math problem that took two days to finish.  They got a sticker for persevering through the problem.  We were adding the numbers on the tree and the answer was 256.

These are all of the kids that did the challenging number problem.  They did it because they showed Mrs. McNeal they understood adding with large numbers on the math test.  They all came up with different answers but then the total answer was 256.

These kids during Flexible Friday shared their projects.  The girl studied Noah's Ark and she wants you to know that Noah was 600 years old during the flood.  The boy in the middle studied spies and he used an iPad to show their tools for safety and spying.  The two boys on the end studied mosasaurus.

Buckaroo News for April 11th to 22nd

I apologize for the delay in getting this to you.  I didn't realize this until some of the children said that their parents couldn't see the blog.  We spent time on Friday filling in the captions for each picture so we were said to see that there was a technological glitch and they didn't save to last week's post.  However, the pictures will provide great conversation starters with your child.  ENJOY!!

Related Arts for the rest of the week:
Thursday - Art
Friday - Music
Monday of next week - Library

Buckaroo News for April 4th to April 8th

GREAT NEWS!!  We have someone lined up to take our chicks once they (hopefully) hatch and I thank Mrs. Kleman for locating this person.  Ironically, this person only lives about a mile down the road from where I live:).   We won't begin this amazing endeavor until May but I wanted to have someone in place before I shared our news!  This adventure crosses all academic areas as we will be journaling about their development, learning about the lifecycle, growth and development, breeds, etc. of chickens.  We will be putting our math skills to use when looking at the temperature and humidity levels each day and adjusting accordingly as well as keeping a calendar to know when to expect a possible hatch and to prepare the brood box for the chicks.  This is just the tip of the iceberg of the learning that takes place during this amazing study!  

Learning Highlights of the Week:
*We are finishing up our How-To books and editing and revising our pieces for
  publishing.
*We are continuing our study of base 10 by using a hundreds chart to 
  determine 1 more, 1 less, 10 more, 10 less.
*We finished up our study of motion by investigating force, speed, and gravity.
  Next week we will begin a study of economics.

I will let the children share their learning from this week with you through the pictures that you will see below.  LOTS and LOTS of hands-on and multi-sensory learning going on in room 118.

Springtacular is fast approaching!  If you did not receive a colorful handout last week about this wonderful event, please let me know.

The Art Show will be held on April 28th from 6:00-7:30 and is a must-see event.

Related Arts for Next Week:
Monday - P.E. (remember tennis shoes)
Tuesday - Art
Wednesday - Music
Thursday - Library (remember library books and book-in-a-bag)
Friday - P.E. again (remember tennis shoes)

We were making ramps because we saw this really cool video that Mrs. McNeal  found and had a great idea that we could make ramps.  We were learning about gravity, speed, force, and inclines. 

This group of girls made their incline like this.  Here is a fact about inclines.  The higher the incline is the faster the object will go.  

We were trying to make it work and it finally worked.  Then we had a great idea to make it faster like a rocket but we didn't finish it because the squishy tube wouldn't stick together.

This group made a 1.0 but it didn't work so they tried something easier so they made a 2.0 and then it finally worked.  The 2.0 was awesome!

This is 1.0:).  

These kids got to go on the morning announcements because they made a piggy bank and a chick house during Tinkering Tuesday and they were so cool that they wanted to share them.

The girls are sharing their book that they collaborated and persevered on together.  The title of the book was The Little Girl Forgot To Bring Her Mom and Dad When She Was Shopping.  

This boy is sharing his reading project with Mr. Graham. 

Today, we got to explore iPads and we used the app Explain Everything and we got to make a little book about what we were learning about for Flexible Friday.

Buckaroo News for March 28th to April 1st

Welcome back from Spring Break!  I hope that everyone had a restful time and that memories were made:)  This week flew by and I know that that is how the rest of the year is going to go!  We began our study of place value in math and motion in science.  Both concepts were taught in a hands-on way to increase understanding.  To kick off our study of motion, I shared a video clip that the children just fell in love with and have begged me everyday to show it again.  It really is amazing to watch and we talked about how we could see all six habits of thinkers that went into putting this amazing feat together.  The clip can be found by going to ok go rube goldberg vimeo.  The pictures below demonstrate some of the activities that we did together to increase our understanding.  We are also learning how to teach someone something by writing "how-to" books.  We've learned that transition words, knowing about your topic, and stretching out the steps to include important details are all very important when writing "how-to" books.  The children have selected their ten words to study at home for word study.  The words will come home on Monday.  While reading, we are continuing to make meaningful connections and to be able to retell key events from the stories.  

On a very important side note, every year for the past several years, we have hatched chicks in our room.  This ties in perfectly with learning about living things vs. nonliving things and touches on every possible subject area.  In order to do this each year, I have to have someone that can give a home to the chicks.  If you know of someone that would be willing to take our feathered friends once they are a week old, please let me know right away.  We won't be hatching until May but I want to have everything lined up prior to telling the children about this fabulous adventure.

Our related arts schedule next week:
Monday - Library (remember book-in-a-bag)
Tuesday - P.E.  (remember tennis shoes)
Wednesday - Art
Thursday - Music
Friday - Library again