Monday, January 28, 2013

Measurement Exploration & Non-Standard Measurement

Before we could begin our new Topic of Measurement, we needed to explore some of the different tools we'd be using.  We divided into small groups and took turns measuring!











Measuring with Round Counters
 







Measuring the Lengh of our room using our friend Bradey.  There's an awesome clip of an episode of Sid the Science kid where they did the same thing (I found it on Teacher Tube).  I used it to introduce the lesson, then we recorded our findings in our journals.



Then, we ordered ourselves by size.  This is a great time for the teacher to step back and allow the kiddos to problem solve.  I loved listening to their reasoning as they lined up.



Wednesday, January 16, 2013

Walruses & Winter Fun

We're learning about Walruses!





Writing Center this week:  'My snowperson is........'


We read The Snowy Day by Ezra Keats then created our own snow families.


We also read Snowmen at Night and completed the following writing prompt: 'If I were a snowman at night, I would.......'


We're studying the letter Oo this week. Here are some pics of our table centers......

Sorting vowel Ladybugs

Reading and illustrating short Oo words then building

Reading some more about our Winter Friends

Recalling Oo word family words 

This is Lakeshore's Short Vowel Piggy Sort


Polar Bears / Arctic Animals


We're learning all kinds of amazing facts about Polar Bears!!  
Most of the materials that I used during this unit were purchased on TpT. The is Deanna Jump's Arctic Animals Unit. 

First we discussed ways that animals survive in the winter.  We created a T-chart and sorted animals that hibernate, adapt, and migrate. 


 After reading multiple non-fiction books on Polar Bears, we took a break and created some Polar Bear biscuits.   Then, we wrote about the supplies we needed and directions we had to follow in order to create these yummy treats.  











We also read and compared to storries about different kinds of bears.  We compared Goldilocks and the Three Bears  to The Three Snow Bears.   We used Jann Brett's versions to discuss the amazing illustrations as well.