Sunday, January 30, 2011

Let It Snow Add & Subtract Game

Here's one of the games the class played this past week!


Let It Snow Add & Subtract Game

Snowball Fight!

Here's the box of snowballs we collected.  Each child had to write five of our popcorn words on pieces of scrap paper and crumble into a snowball.

We are having a snowball fight!  Each child had four snowballs and had to take cover.  After they heard 1, 2, 3 - SNOWBALL FIGHT the snowballs flew!  We did this about four times!!!  When the snowball fight was over the children gathered four snowballs and went to their tables to read the popcorn words to their friends while I was mixing up the hot chocolate.  We had "snow" much fun we just might have to do it again!

Hibernating Bears

We read about animals in winter.  We learned that some animals migrate, some gather food, and others hibernate.  Here's a picture of our hibernating bears.  Precious!

I have a pocket chart, Time to Hibernate.  The leader of the day gets to choose an animal to hibernate and we read the poem together.  After several days the children completed their own poem choosing their animal and where it hibernates.

P.I.G. Book Addition

The focus letter was Ll.  I wanted the students to countdown from 17 since that's how many Ll's were found in the poem.  Then each student drew a picture of something that begins with Ll and labeled it.

Donuts with Dad

Here's a picture of one of the tables set up for Donuts with Dad.

 


Take a look at the inside of the book!


Here's a close-up.  The children designed their place mats using 2 different color strips to cut and glue a pattern.  The shirt and tie on the right is actually a book about dad.  Each child read their book to their dad.   Above the place mat is the centerpiece.  I took a picture of each child dressed up to look like dad.  Too cute!



Here's the Father Making Words game the children played with their dads.  Maybe you want to play at home!  I told the class that I made 31 words.  Some of the children wanted to add some more words when they got home.  I suggested challenging their siblings.  Enjoy!

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Cute Snowmen!


 Head ball
Belly ball
Bottom ball
Done!
 Building Mr. Snowman
Is always lots of fun!


 
Look at this cute snowman made from snow dough!
Snow Dough


Mix following dry ingredients thoroughly:
  • 2 cups white flour
  • 1 cup salt
  • 1 tablespoon of powdered alum or cream of tartar
  • glitter
Boil:
  • 2 cups water
  • 2 tablespoons of salad oil
  • flavoring extract, if desired
Add boiling ingredients to dry ingredients.  (I use my mixer.)  Mix thoroughly.  Don't worry about lumps.

Let it cool until it can be easily handled.   Knead for about 5 minutes until completely smooth.  Let it continue to cool until all the warmth is gone.  Store in a sealed container.  It will last for weeks and weeks unless the lid is left off.



P.I.G. Book Additions

Here's a poem from Kim Jordano.  The students went on a letter Hh hunt.  Since the students found 6 letter H's, I asked them to draw 6 shapes and circle groups of 2.  Then they wrote by 2's starting from 50.  This student wrote to 118!  "Frog"tastic!!!

January Quilt

Here's some symmetrical snowflake creations for the January quilt.  I forgot to take a picture, but on the back the students counted how many of each shape was used to create their snowflake and then  totaled all the shapes used in their creation.

Here's the completed quilt.  Notice how each snowflake is unique.

The Mitten

Look at our matching mittens!

Here's our mitten venn diagram.  We compared The Mitten by Alvin Tresselt and The Mitten by Jan Brett.

Here's a sample of The Mitten journal page.  The children are becoming quite the writers!

100 Day Fun!

100 day place mats the children colored.

We are ready to eat 100 pieces of cereal and play the Mystery Picture Grid game.

This is one of the number scrolls the students have been working on since the tenth day of school.  They love seeing how long it is getting every time they add another group of ten.  It's longer than me!  The students are having so much fun with this project that we decided to continue adding to our scrolls until the last day of school. 

Each child picked five numbers to find on the 100 grid.

Here's the mystery picture!  It's a 100 smiley face!

Here are some of the 100 Day Bottle Collections.  From left to right you see marshmallows, peanuts, bb's,  aquarium rocks, pom poms, beads, and thumb tacks.  This was a fun guessing game and the children wrote some very good clues.  The children will now have the opportunity to check the collections by using different methods of counting to 100.

Everyone had a chance to write about what they would do if they had $100.

Zero the Hero brought the class 100 Day Smarter certificates, a cookie cake with 100 M&M's, and 100 dollar bill notebooks.  I challenged the class to write 100 words in their notebook and bring it to school for a reward.  Who will meet the challenge?

Saturday, January 15, 2011

Pattern Block Snowflakes

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Snazzy Snowman Cooking Project

The children read and followed directions to create this cute little fellow made out of crackers, sweetened cream cheese, chocolate chips, candy corn, pretzels, and M&M's.  "Snow"licious!

Cut Away Snowflakes

We used coffee filters to create snowflakes!  I folded the filters in half, then in thirds and stapled.  The children cut "bites" from each side to create their snowflakes.  The children loved this activity.  It was great to hear the children discussing ways to cut  their snowflakes so it wouldn't fall apart when opened.  They were so surprised and delighted to see their creations. We discovered that each snowflake is special and unique just like real snowflakes.

Thermometer Experiment

Here's a picture of our thermometer experiment.  We talked about how a thermometer can measure the temperature of air, water, and even your body.  In this experiment we measured the temperature of water without ice and with ice.  It was fun seeing the red going up and down on the thermometer! 

We recorded our results and discussed our findings.  The children discovered that the red of the thermometer goes up when temperatures are warm or hot and the red of the thermometer goes down when temperatures are cold.

Icicle Patterns

The students practiced their patterning skills by creating beaded icicle patterns.  You create the pattern you spin choosing white and clear beads to put on a pipe cleaner.

Snowman Glyph

Each child filled in the sentence or circled the sentence that represented him or her.

Here are some of the glyphs the children made.  If you look at the legend above, you will notice that 2 of the snowmen are girls and 2 are boys, 2 like the color blue, 1 likes red, and 1 likes green.  They all like hot chocolate!

Finally, each child wrote about their glyph.

Snowman Math

 The class enjoyed working with snowman math this week.  This student is finding all the ways to make ten.  It's always fun when you get to eat the manipulatives!


  Here is a sample of a student finding how many ways to subtract from ten.








SNOWMAN _ADD _ SUBTRACT_ -

Saturday, January 8, 2011

P.I.G. Book Additions

The class added the December poem to their P.I.G. Book this week. 


On the right hand side of the P.I.G. Book each child wrote about something they received for Christmas.

Here's the poem for letter Oo.  This poem is from Kim Jordano's Poetry Journal.  The students read and butter popcorn words, find rhyming words, and go on a letter hunt.

7 letter Oo's were found so the children created subtraction sentences using unifix cubes.  In this photo the student illustrated the number sentence that is circled.


Here's a sample of the first subtraction sentence written using unifix cubes.  The student and I work the first one together then the student returns to the table to create more subtraction sentences.  I check the work and the student picks one of the number sentences to illustrate.

Calendar Math Additions for January

Here's the place value dominoes page  I added to the January calendar math.  I found this form on Shari Sloane's Kidscount1234.com.

We are estimating snowballs this month!

More New Year Stuff

Here's our fireworks.  This was done by blowing drops of paint using a straw.  It was hard work!

Our New Year Hats!

Notice the patterns.

So cute!!!

This is one of the pocket charts we read this week.  The students could change the first letter in the word 'happy'.   This a great phonemic awareness exercise.


This is our circle map of new year resolutions.  We discussed that a resolution is like a goal - something to improve on for the new year.  These are some resolutions the children came up with.  Aren't they great?

Here's ourselves celebrating the new year.  Each student's resolution is written on their hat.



Aren't these adorable?!