Week 30

Swimming party with Mrs. Bluemel's class!

New Samurai reader!

New reading Samurai getting ready to do his Samurai jump off the table

Star of the week sharing

All the reading Samurais from this year getting ready to do a Samurai jump

New reading Samurai showing his muscles

First graders who accidentally dressed alike!

Students working on an art project

Easter art project

This was another great week for us!  With spring break coming up—not to mention the nice weather mixed with snow—students were very wound up this week.  We made it through, though, and we had a lot of fun with our learning.

Special Activities: This week we had a swimming party!  The students all loved it.  They have been working to earn a party, and they needed to become familiar with the pool and rules before starting swimming for P.E. on April 10^th.  We combined with Mrs. Bluemel’s first grade class.  They had so much fun, and I think they learned a ton about social skills and motor skills as well!

We had an Easter art lesson where we teamed up with another class and made bunnies.  Students had a great time, and they we very proud of their accomplishments in making the bunnies. 

April Fool’s is coming up, so I sent home a false homework packet.  Since students have been a little wound up this week, I told them they deserve an extra thick homework packet.  I stapled to the cover page a bunch of worksheets that I copied but we didn’t get to throughout the year.  They were mostly all the same worksheet, so students should soon realize that something is up and stop doing the worksheets .  On the cover page it says “April Fool’s.”   I thought it would be a good—yet harmless—April Fool’s joke.  Hopefully it works out well, and nobody actually spends the whole weekend trying to do the whole thing! 

Funny Stuff From Kids: The kids were keeping me rolling this week!...

On the way to our swim party, I had to correct a student’s behavior on the bus.  I looked over to find him with his swimming trunks on his head pretending he was a rock star…because that’s what rock stars do!

After earning his Samurai, one boy was congratulated by the principal.  Later he told me in the cutest voice that, “He thinks I should be principal because I read so good!”

I got tongue-twisted, said something wrong, and had to correct myself.  In response to this, one girl teased me by saying I was a fibber.  Then she followed it up with, “I would call you a liar, ‘fibber’ is a lot nicer.”  Kids generally call it how it is!

One girl has been on a kick of helping people find lost things.  She said she’s found a method that never fails, and you can tell she truly believes whole-heartedly in it.  She says, “Come on.  We can do this.  We’ll find it.  Just look where you saw it last!”…I haven’t had the heart to break it to her that if someone knows where they saw it last, then it wouldn’t be lost!

One student caught a bug at recess.  Then they put it in our science jar and wrote this on the outside with a dry erase marker: “For Sale.  You need a bug.”

Some students said that they were cousins.  In the past, I’ve asked students how.  Many times they are able to tell me that their dads are brothers or their dads are cousins or whatever.  This time, however, the students said, “We were born in the same hospital on about the same day, so we’re cousins!” 

“My cousin has bronchitis, but I’m lucky because I skipped right to pneumonia when I was sick!”

The star of the week brought in an elk call to show the class.  As he was explaining it, he told a story and said that his dad was calling in an elk, but he called in a girl.  Another students said, “A girl person or a girl elk?...or a girl squirrell…or a girl ant…”  The class got quite a kick out of the elk call, and they really thought it was funny that it called in a girl….and they really really liked the silly idea of it calling in a non-elk girl.  Ya just had to be there to really get it, but it was pretty hilarious. 

The term chicken pox came up in a story, and one girl said, “Huh?  What was she doing near a chicken in the first place?”

Homework: More people have been turning homework in.  Thanks!  Keep it up throughout the spring.

Social Studies:  This week we revisited the topic of how everyone is different and special, and we switched things up by replacing our morning saying with something new.  Now we listen to a song in the mornings to remind us of this.  It’s called “What I Am.”  It talks about how every person is great, including how everyone is special and everyone can succeed.  It can be found at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cyVzjoj96vs

Math: This week in math we tested on graphs.  Students did great.  We also talked about how to add and subtract mentally by tens.  It was great to get a feel for that program and evaluate it a little bit.  Thanks for your patience.  We’ll be switching back to the other math program now for the rest of the year.      

Project Read/Spelling: This week we focused on bossy r sounds.  As discussed in the homework packet, when a vowel comes before an r the r changes the sound the vowel makes (car, turn, stir, corn, etc.).  Students did well, but I think they need more practice.  We’ll be doing it for a few more weeks. 

Speedy Words and Rocket Math: Students are working hard to earn their ice cream party.

AR: Students keep progressing, and we got two new Samurais this week!

Writing: This week our writing mostly focused on Valentine’s Day, including making Valentine’s cards.

Science: For science we watched a Magic School Bus episode one day.  The next day the class designed and conducted an experiment to see what tape was the stickiest.  We had three kinds of tape.  We let a car down a makeshift ramp, and the tape was rolled out at the bottom of the ramp.  The car rolled onto the tape, and eventually the stickiness of the tape caused it to stop.  Whichever tape could stop the car the soonest would be the stickiest.  We determined that the clear packaging tape I have is the stickiest tape in our classroom.