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