Winter Holiday Party

Our crew spent the morning celebrating with one another at our Holiday party. The students had the best time participating in relay races, decorating snowmen, creating snowflakes, and eating tasty treats. The students talked about the party all day. A few even said, "This is the best day, ever!" :) Thank you to Jennifer for planning such a wonderful event for our crew! Also, thank you to all of those who volunteered and/or brought supplies to make this party a success. Happy Holidays from our crew to yours!

Unwanted Candy!

After celebrating Halloween, our students learned of an exciting opportunity with I-Orthodontics in Lone Tree. For every pound of candy we donated, we would earn a dollar in return! All of the candy donated is given to local charities and those who did not get to trick or treat. After Ms. Crystal, Ms. Tina, and I dropped the candy off, we were informed our crew donated 72 pounds of candy. For this donation, we received 72 dollars to purchase something for our classroom!

 

The students collaborated to brainstorm a list of items to purchase. After having discussing budgets and wants vs. needs, the students decided the money would be best spent purchasing flag football belts, a roller vacuum, and dustpans. The students shared that during Togetherness there is confusion if someone is tagged or not. They decided if we wear these flags during Togetherness we will have less conflict over who was tagged. They also admitted that picking up scraps off the floor is an afternoon job they dread. By purchasing a roller vacuum and dustpans this job may be easier. I am so impressed with our crew's ability to think about spending the money in a useful way that can benefit our classroom. Thank you all for your donations, and thank you to I-Orthodontics for partnering with us!

Halloween Party

Our crew had a wonderful time celebrating Halloween together! We were able to show the school our costumes in the Halloween Parade. After the parade, we spent the morning enjoying delicious breakfast treats, decorating jack-o-lanterns and ghosts, and bowling with "ghosts". The students had an absolute blast! Thank you to Jennifer Giambrone for planning a great event, and thank you to all of the families that donated supplies and/or joined us for this celebration. This party would not have been a success without your support. Happy Halloween!

Non-fiction

Our crew is becoming experts on non-fiction in reading and writing! 

As readers, we have read non-fiction books and discovered text features that authors include to help readers learn. We eventually will use these non-fiction text features to create a book about pond life.

For now, we are practicing these non-fiction text features as we read. This week, we focused on captions. The students wrote a caption to describe a photograph. We learned captions need to describe the photograph using facts and true information, as well as be interesting, short, and specific. We also spent some time comparing a table of contents and an index. We learned the table of contents shares the headings and pages numbers, and an index shares specific words in the text along with page numbers.

In writing, our students are learning to write informational text. As a class, we have discovered that informational text is text that teaches facts to readers. The students have been researching a pond life animal, writing facts, and creating their own informational text about the animal they are studying. We have discussed organization and sentence fluency. In the weeks to come, the students will begin adding a topic sentence, conclusion, and supporting details to the informational text they are composing.

Fieldwork to Carson Nature Center

Our students visited Carson Nature Center today to participate in our second fieldwork with Ranger Beth. The students had the opportunity to visit wetland, the river edge, and grassland habitats to discover organisms. The students were able to discover the following information about each habitat:

Wetlands are sunny, wet, windy, and near water. Wetlands include any habitat that has shallow water. Organisms such as cattails, mice, ducks, and beavers live in this habitat.

 

The river edge is where the river meets the land. In this habitat, it is sunny, shady, wet, and windy. Organisms such as cottonwood trees, raccoons, mice, squirrels, ducks, rabbits, and beavers can be found in this habitat.

Grasslands are habitats that are large open areas of grass. This habitat is sunny, dry and windy. Tall and short plants, raccoons, mice, chipmunks, rabbits, and even snakes live in this habitat. (See if you can spot the snake in the photograph of grass below!) :)

Along with learning about different habitats, the students had the opportunity to learn about seed dispersal and pollination. The students discovered that some animals pollinate and others disperse seeds. Seeds can be dispersed through water, wind, scat, and even by connecting on to another animal's fur.

The students also had the ability to interact with a flood table. The students were able to place plants and animals in areas they believe would best survive. Once a flood appeared, the students noticed the flood affected the entire wetland and river edge! They moved animals and plants around to finally discover the best place for these organisms to thirve.

This fieldwork helped us learn about different habitats. In the weeks to come, we will compare these different habitats and discover how organisms survive and thrive.

Strategies

Our crew has been learning all about strategies! A few weeks ago, we collaborated to create a class definition of the word "strategy".

Once we learned the meaning of the word "strategy", our crew learned all the strategies readers use when they come to an unknown word. The students applied these strategies during independent reading and set a goal for themselves as readers. This goal will be shared during Student Led Family Conferences in November. A green "word strategies" list was sent home in Thursday folders this week for our readers to use at home.

We have also learned strategies that we can use to solve problems independently. Solving problems independently takes courage and respect! Our Crew is working on using the strategy "CFRR" when they want to communicate with a friend. Each child was sent home with the problem-solving strategies today. It is their responsibility to share these strategies with their family.

      

Field Day

Our crew had a day filled with fitness, fun, and sunshine! We spent the morning participating in Field Day! The students had a great time playing tag, swinging from ropes, completing an obstacle course, collaborating in a water balloon toss, waving a parachute, and chasing others in Drip, Drip, Drop (a spin on Duck, Duck, Goose). Thank you to Mr. B for all of his hard work planning this fantastic day!