Apples!

It's Fall, and that means it's apple time!  We've had a fantastic time learning all about apples and how apple products are made.  Check out some pictures!

We made apple headbands describing the life cycle

We labeled apple parts.

We created an apple pictograph.

We converted the information from our pictograph to our bar graph.

This shows the two columns of the bar graph, cut out and taped, to form the circle for our pie graph. 

Where the green was shaded on the bar graph, the two lines were drawn to the midpoint.

This is the completed graph.

After reading various forms of literature, we recorded the facts we learned.

Using Math Literature - Henry the Fourth by Stuart Murphy

Another fantastic literature piece is Stuart Murphy's Henry the Fourth.  The story lends itself to an easy role play situation.  Check out some of the amazing props that we created before 'acting out' our story.

So heres what we started with: a blank slate to help us understand the story better.  This was completed the day before we acted it out.

Everyone gathered around and shared their ideas after listening to the story.  They did a fabulous job recalling the characters, setting, problem, solution, and order of events.

And so the fun began!  First we compiled a list of characters and props as a class.  (You can see the lists below).  Then each child had 8 minutes to design his/her prop.

Lillian was one of our main character, Henry.  Dayton was her 'owner'.

Bryce was our announcer; can you get any cuter than that?

Skylar, Landon, and Jackson helped to create our story line.

Da'Lynn and the above friends also created a sign for the show.

Melody was Bryson's 'owner'.

Kaleb was Ian's owner and Aylin was Savannah's owner.

So proud!

The first one to arrive on stage!

Everyone's ready!  Kaitlynn, the second cutie pie in the row, is an excellent artist.

Sweet Aylin got to tell her best friend how to perform!

Does this smile not melt your heart?

Aidan designed our main characters bone; this is what solved our problem!

Kaleb did a great job!

Bella's smile lit up the stage!

Bryson 'rolled over' beautifully.

And Henry, oh what a dog!

Jackson crowed Henry queen of the show!

Dayton led his dog nicely.

And finally, Rylie and Bryce created the best looking megaphone I've ever seen!

Here is our list of characters and Props.  We completed this during the second day of the lesson, before we made our props and acted our the story.

 

Patterns!

I have to tell you how amazing the past week has been!  My sweet class has done an amazing job with our new math series.  Thanks to some strategies I picked up at a conference this past summer, I've incorporated some new 'stuff' into my teaching and it's really paid off!  At a Math Literacy Camp that I attended at MTSU, we were given multiple resources to take back to our class.  If you haven't read Patterns in Peru, its a must.  The children love decorating their own tunics with various patterns on them.

Here are the graffiti board and carousel model used together to create a vin diagram.  A graffiti board is used by writing a single 'term' in the middle and having students explain their initial understanding of the term; the teacher can record correct and incorrect answers, then the class can go through the ideas recorded and self-correct for greater understanding.  The carosel model is used when you have 3 or more terms that you'll be conveying to students.  This is an excellent tool to use as a pre-assessment.  The children work in small groups to record their thoughts on the terms.  I walk around and monitor the students while taking anecdotal notes on the conversations and recording what the students are writing/drawing on the board.     

Zero the Hero on the 20th Day!

Zero the Hero visited us on the 20th Day of school.  This time, he brought one of his favorite '0' snacks, fruitloops.  He also left us some zeros of course!

Savannah, Bryce, and Ian found the picture first!  This time, we got a sneak peak of his mask and his o cape!

This is a view from the back of the room.  We were analyzing the number '20'.

I just love using my document camera.  We're not lucky enough to have smartboards, YET, but we're making due with our projectors and document cameras.  Here, we're reviewing 'Hey Diddle Diddle' and reviewing rhyming words.

'How We Go Home' Graph

Everyone got their own type of 'vehicle' or backpack.  We discussed how and why we each travel home a different way.

Here are our results!