November- part two

We are continuing our work with spiders, but are also talking about insects.

We are singing the song from Dr. Jean "Head Thorax, Abdomen" in each of the grades. We use actions as well.  We point to our own body parts as we sing the song.  At the end of the song, we put up three fingers on each hand to represent the six legs on the insect.

In 2-5 grades are also learning another song to the tune of London Bridges.  We read some very cool non-fiction books.  We will be writing spider/insect facts as well.

October- Magnets& Skeltons

Our themes in October:

Magnets

Skeletons & bones

Pumpkins & Gourds

Spiders

*******MAGNETS******

We used magnetic wands to see how many chips we could pick up.

We made plates with designs on them for the children to try and follow.

We had a sheet that the children had to cut out and put in order.

********Skeletons & Bones **********

Review songs

Put large skeleton in order

We made Q-Tip skeletons (pictures to follow)

*********Pumpkins & Gourds***********

K-1 we made pumpkin books.

Everyone explored the pumpkins and gourds. We came up with pumpkin and gourd words on a pumpkin chart. Then 2-5 grade children came up with questions to ask, the answers had to come from the chart. (Chart photo to follow)

I wrote down the questions on large index cards to use as an independent activity.

********SPIDERS**************

We are learning about spiders this week. as usual we have a variety of books available that are both fiction and non-fiction for the students to read.

One activity we had the students do was to pretend that they were spiders. I gave the students each 1/2 of a plate - this was their web. I gave them their insect (it was a sugar cube) then I gave them some venom (water) They used small spoons to put venom on the insect. When the insect (sugar cube) turned into a liquid, they used a straw to suck up the insect.

We also came up with spider themed words. The 2-5 graders had to come up with questions where the answers were on the spider chart.

September-Apples and Potatoes

In September we talked and learned about:

*All About Me

*Apples

*Germs

For our Germs unit, each grade got 4 slices of a potato.

1 slice everyone touched it

1 slice no one touched

1 slice we blew on

Each group did one different one:

1 rubbed on the table

1 rubbed it on the floor

1 rubbed it on the door handle

We made a chart of what we saw on the potato. I made a sheet with little hand lenses on it.

We also added to it what we think might happen.

******* APPLES************

We enlarged an apple (photo to come) the students had to label the parts of an apple.

We weighed things against an apple.

We listed things that used apples in them: apple pie, crisp. I made an overhead using apples. I will have to see if I can share that with you some how.

Pensive

This is my pensive. Frog on the outside. It zips around the whole thing, which is a good thing!

On the inside left cover, there is a pocket, I put post-it notes in there. It also holds some pens.

Summer School Day 14

Summarize Text was our strategy for today. I didn't look at the card until now and see that my student made a mistake, so he will have to fix that tomorrow :)

We started a new unit today, Traveling West on the Oregon Trail.

Summer School Day 13

Today's strategy was Reread Text. We put it under the Fluency heading.

Summer School Day 12

Today we added Voracious Reading to expand our vocabulary.

There are now actually TWO voracious reading headings on our board.

Fluency- read the same thing over and over again such as a play.

Expand Vocab- reading all different types of material.