This Week We're Learning About...

Animal Homes and Habitats



To start off our unit we began learning about the desert. To sum up what we learned we made a desert landscape out of sand and cut-outs.

First we colored and cut out our desert animal and plant, the camel and cactus.

Then we applied glue to the bottom half of the paper with a brush and poured sand over it.

Last we glued on our desert sun, plant and animal.

Here's the finished product!

Ready, Set, Vote!

Our Classroom Election!

In going along with learning about the presidents we also learned about what it means to vote. After talking about it, we decided to have our own election and vote for a class president. Some teachers nominated students and some students nominated themselves. Once we figured out our nominees they gave their speech on how they would make a great class president.

Lorenzo giving his speech. Everyone had to pick three ways they could help improve the classroom like using kind words, recycling, following directions, or helping friends for example.

Our voting booth!

Here's Shannon placing his vote!

Here is Amaya helping tally up the votes. We also talked about charts and graphs. We learned they are all about telling us HOW MANY.

Here's Terrence working with Amaya to place the votes on our chart.

Shannon was in charge of the total votes and announcing who won our class election!

The results are in... Lorenzo was voted our class president!

We had a pizza party to celebrate our election and the end of our unit on presidents!

Room 24 has mail!!!

Today we went to check our mail box and we were so excited- we had mail from our new friends in Maryland.

Ms. Erin stumbled upon our website on accident while searching for a simple science project. It turns out she has a classroom similar to ours... in Maryland! She contacted me with the great idea of becoming penpals and that is where it all began!

We spent the afternoon writing letters back!

Our Classroom Constitution...

Today we read our Weekly Reader about the constitution. We learned that the constitution was written by our country's leaders and presidents. We learned that the constitution is a list of laws, or rules, and then we talked about how we follow certain laws, or rules when we are in school.

After reading we got ready to make our own constitution!

On our constitution we wrote our "Cougar Code", which is be respectful, be responsible, and be safe. We also wrote a few of our most important class rules.

Next, we crumpled the papers up to make them look old, handled, and weathered.

Finally, we unfolded our constitutions and dipped them in coffee to make them look REALLY old. Everyone loved this part!

A sample of the finished product:

This week we've been learning about...

Presidents

Since we have no school on Monday to honor our Presidents Lincoln and Washington we have been learning all about them this week!

Our mini Mount Rushmores:

Anthony holding the finished product!

Valentine's Day Party!

Happy Valentine's Day from Room 24!

Here is Lorenzo waiting with great anticipation for us to start passing out Valentine's Day cards!

Everyone was so excited to put their mailbox to use! We wrapped and decorated them in class earlier that week.

Lorenzo and Amaya were proud of their Valentine's Day crown! They were our king and queen of hearts!

Let the partying begin...

Passing out Valentine's Day cards to friends:

 



Enjoying treats and sweets:

After the kids went home...

Teachers love Fannie Mae! :)

Special Visitor to Room 24

Last Wednesday Ms. Connie Pavur stopped by Kerkstra to visit the classrooms and help celebrate Ms. Long's birthday. Ms. Pavur is a recently retired DESTINY teacher. Keeping us in the Valentine's Day mood, she brought a very special Valentine for the students to make. Everyone loved it and had lots of fun!

Ms. Pavur

Everyone scoping out all the materials needed!

Thank You Ms. Pavur for your visit and lovely craft!

Valentine's Day Fun...

We made lots of different Valentine's Day cards for our friends in room 5 and 22. Check out what we made:

Lorenzo is gluing the leaves on this flower themed Valentine.

Here's Diego posing with his finished product. On the inside it read: You can count on me when things get sticky!

I love this next Valentine! Here's Amaya putting her hearts together. To make this Valentine, you need a glow stick and some paper hearts. Familyfun.go.com has a lot of great ideas! Below is a picture of the final product.

This Week We're Learning About...

Valentine's Day

and what it means to be a good friend...

      Today we started getting ready for Valentine's Day! Today for reading group we read the story, 'Twas the Night Before Valentine's Day, by Natasha Wing. Everyone loved this story and we learned all about what one classroom does to prepare for their Valentine's Day party. After we read the story we talked all about what it means to be a good Valentine. We started with a board full of 'thumbs up' and 'thumbs down' behaviors and then everyone took turns picking a picture from the board. We talked about the picture and decided if the behavior was 'thumbs up' or 'thumbs down'. If it was 'thumbs up' we stuck it on a giant heart to put up in the classroom to remind us of what it means to be a good friend and Valentine this week.
    Next we made a graph of candy hearts! First we practiced how to make one as a group and then everyone got their own box of Spongebob candy hearts to graph!

Lorenzo volunteered to come up and place the yellow hearts on our class graph.

First we sorted our hearts in the piles by color. Here is Amaya hard at work!

Next it was time to place them on the graph!

Shannon didn't even sort his- he got right to placing them on the graph!

Lorenzo loved this math group- especially because of the Spongebob candies!

This afternoon we made a Valentine's Day crown with Ms. Amy! Everyone loved using the colorful stickers and paper cut-outs to decorate their crown!



Our Chinese New Year Celebration!

Gung Hay Fat Choy!

     Today was our party to celebrate the start of the Chinese New Year! We wore our special hats to get in the festive spirit. These hats, like the one that Amaya is wearing, is typically made out of straw or bamboo and is often worn by workers to shield them from the sun and to keep them cool.

     For lunch we ordered in from Panda Express and our party began!

 

Each student got to order from a picture menu...

Then once we got the food, we all gathered together for our feast. It was so nice because we, staff and students, don't usually eat lunch all together as a large group!

Last night Ms Amy and I got together to make a special treat for the class. We made cupcakes to resemble popular chinese food- Chow Mein, Fried Rice, and the Fortune Cookie!

Lorenzo loved them!