All You Need is... Valentine's Day!

What a love filled week we had. From making a class book about what love means to each student, reading Valentine's books and even doing some Valentine's candy math we had a wonderful week celebrating the love in our classroom.

Love Is Class Book

This week we discussed what love actually was and the kids came up with some great ideas. Whether it was "taking care of someone else, or being kind to someone" the kids really thought long and hard about the things in their lives that they loved. We then wrote and drew pictures about what we loved to put together to make a love class book for students to read in our class library. Here are a few pages from the book: 

My family is love because they take care of me.

I love my teacher. I love the world. I love my pets. I love my friends.

I love food. I love recess. I love my pet.

Candy Math

Perhaps the most exciting part of our week was when I handed each student a box of candy hearts and had them graph their box based on color! Students graphed their own papers, which you will see examples of below, and then as a class we compared to see which color students got the most of! I was shocked there were about 6 kids who didn't have an entire color and others that had over half of their box be one color. It was a really fun way to compare data and see the differences within each box.

A student colors in her squares to match the number of hearts she had in her box.

We are full speed ahead to spring break. From our field trip to OMSI this week, Read Across America week the next and then our 100th day of school after that we are going to be jam packed with fun activities! I can't wait to document all the fun that your children, and I, are having :)

Smiles,

Miss Adams

Fly Guy, Maps and More!

Hello all! What a fun week we had last week starting off with our field trip to see Fly Guy the Musical, learning about Maps, compasses and legends and of course gearing up for Valentines Day we had quite the packed week!

Fly Guy the Musical

On Tuesday we ventured into Downtown Portland to have our minds blown by Fly Guy the Musical put on by Oregon Children's Theater. The kids were awestruck to say they least. They couldn't believe that the fly guy stories we had read in class were brought to life in the play. I heard many kids exclaim "how is this real?" When we got back to school we brainstormed our favorite parts of the show and students got to write about it! Their writing turned out so great so I wanted to share a few!

I like when Liz's mom met Fly Girl. It was funny!

Fly Guy and Fly Girl were chased by the robot.

I like when the Robot chases Fly Girl and Fly Guy.

I like when the crossing guard was making the kids dance.

Maps

This week we started looking at Maps! Students got exposed to a compass and using a compass to give me directions! We have also been using our compass to predict which direction our pattern will go in Calendar. I have been pleasantly surprised with how well the kids have picked up the vocabulary. I even heard a kid at recess say "Well the wind is blowing East today!" Then we started looking at legends and keys to figure out details about maps. This week students will get to make their own maps, with their own compass to show the direction of items and a legend to show which colored paper represents different landmarks. They are very excited to dive right in!

Our class compass.

Our compass at the top of our calendar.

LOVE Art Project

Over the past week students were able to make a very fun art project. Students got to look at texture of paper and how we can paint crumpled paper lightly to give a picture the appearance of texture. Then students put black letters on top of their painted papers to add contrast and finally put all the pieces together. They turned out so well and are hanging in the main entry for the whole school to see!

All you need is...

Gluing letters can be hard when you have to put the glue on the wrong side :)

What a busy week we had and I can't wait to continue our Map exploration, have a wonderful Valentine's day and continue our study of our community and kindness.

Smiles,

Miss Adams

Self Portraits!

In honor of conferences this week we focused a lot on self reflections and of course had to do our mid year self portraits. Students had the opportunity to reflect on which subjects they like best at school and how they feel they do at listening, following directions etc. It was quite interesting to see who I thought was being too hard on themselves as learners! I will of course share those documents with you at conferences this week!

Self Portraits 

To start our self portraits we talked about the fact that we are all learning how to be artists, which means that there will be no perfect way to draw yourself and that is ok. Some students said phrases like "I'm no good at art" and we talked about the fact that we will always be learning, growing and changing. Our class motto is "The more you practice the better you get!" First we started by drawing our head, eyes, mouth (that was the hard part!), ears etc. Then we colored our faces with color crayons and finally water colored the background. I have never seen the kids work so hard and their hardwork shows in the beauty of these self portraits. You can see them all displayed in our classroom when you come to conferences, but here are a few previews!

A student colors in her self portrait.

A student adds watercolor to his background.

 Here are a few of the finished ones! I love the details they added!

High Fives!

Along with our school's behavior tickets "Goldfish" our class has started using High Fives which are our class coupons that students get when I see them doing something exceptional, helping out a friend, cleaning up an area they weren't working at, doing a task without being reminded etc. Students have been collecting these High Fives and I finally opened our "Coupon Store" for students to buy reward coupons with their High Fives. Some of the coupons include No Shoes (getting to take your shoes off in the classroom for one day) Bring a Stuffed Animal to School (getting to bring their favorite stuffed toy to school for one day) and more! Students love looking at our chart to decide which coupon they are saving for and I have loved seeing students collaborating and sharing their tickets. I have heard "Hey if you save 5 and I save 5 we can buy something that is 10 tickets together!" When you get the chance ask your child what they are saving for or how many High Fives they have saved at school so far!

The green is the poster with the coupons displayed and the box below is where students can buy the physical coupons.

Well that is all for this week. I can't wait to see you all at conferences and to continue all of the fun I have with your children every day!

Smiles,

Miss Adams

Conferences are Coming Quick!

Hello parents and welcome back! It has been quite a while since my last blog and I do apologize for that. It was hard to start projects, let alone finish them when we had 2 days of school 3 days off 3 days of school 7 days off! I am hoping that we are in the clear now and can get back into the swing of things! With that being said there is only one week left until conferences and we are going full speed ahead! 

Rainbow Magic Assembly

On Friday we had the amazing privilege of watching the Rainbow Magic Dance Company perform a wide range of dances. They started with a hip hop dance on hover boards (it was as awesome as it sounds!) and ended with a traditional African dance. The kids loved it and even got to go up on stage to learn the electric slide! It was an amazing experience! 

Students dancing on stage!

Traditional African dance

Arctic Animal Study

All month long students have been engaging in an Arctic Animal study where they will learn about 9 different animals from the Arctic. Students have been gathering all the information they can about each animal and tracking it in the fact book. From labeling pictures of each animal to writing fun facts about them students have been so engaged and loving learning about these amazing animals. This week we will finish up with our last 2 animals and finish off our study by having students write an opinion piece about their favorite arctic animal! Stay tuned for their finished projects next week!

In STREAM students made snowy owl masks!

A student labels the arctic hare in her fact book.

Handwriting

A new focus for us this month has been handwriting. Many students still use all capital letters when writing or intermittent capital letters among lowercase. Through our writing and focused handwriting time (both on iPads as seen below and on paper) students have been working to make their handwriting more legible and in the correct case! We will continue this work into February as well.

A student uses a stylus to practice their handwriting on iPads

Well that is all for now! Excited for this last busy week with these amazing kiddos before I get to share all of their amazing work with you at conferences!

Smiles,

Miss Adams

10 School Days 'Til Winter Break

Can you believe we are almost to winter break? Wow! Where has the time gone? We are busy preparing for our Winter Performance on December 16th at 1:30pm and the kids are so excited to share with you what we have been working on! Here are a few fun topics that we have been focusing on in class:

Winter Friends

This week we did a directed drawing of snowmen, which we are calling our Winter Friends. Then students traced over their pictures with black sharpies so that they could water color them. Now we are working on writing about our Winter Friends. Students got to pick out a snowman worthy name, some are too funny!! and they are writing about why their Winter Friend is kind. We are partnering this activity with our Kindness unit that we are doing during this holiday season. I will post photos once we have the final products this week. Here are a few photos of the initial drawing/outlining:

Nutrition

Every month your students have the opportunity to have our fabulous nutrition teacher come to show students how to make healthy meals, learn about the different food groups and how to keep their bodies happy and healthy. This week students worked more on food groups and played games where they had to decide which foods we eat go in which food groups. Then students got to plan out a healthy meal with something from every food group. This week students will have a book and an activity coming home that relates to the lesson we had last week! Here are some photos of the kids deciding which food group their food group goes in:

We have two amazing assemblies this week, which I will try to take photos of, and we are practicing more for our Winter Performance! Stay warm this week and let the countdown to break begin!

Smiles,

Miss Adams

Weekly Update

Wow! This week was full of amazing art projects, math that blew my mind and of course lots of amazing writing. Check it out!

My Family

This week we focused on our families, how our families were the same, how they were different and why families are important. With this theme students drew a picture showing who lived in their house, many students reported that they wouldn't be able to fit their whole family in one picture :), so we decided to narrow it down to who we lived with! Then after drawing students labeled their pictures and wrote about it in a list format. I was so impressed with their amazing work and the details they included. Check them out:

My family has my mom and my dad and my brother and my baby sister.

In my family there is my mom and my dad and my brother and Milo!

My family has mom, dad and Jack.

Wants and Needs

In social studies this week we continued discussing what being thankful meant as well as looking at things in our life that we need versus things that we want. Students came up with some amazing examples and they even had quite the conversation about if a cell phone was something that we need or something that we want! Then students got to choose a need and a want to draw and write about. Check them out:

I want a cookie. I need a house.

I want a cupcake. I need water.

I want a princess dress. I need a house.

Sorry this post is so short this week. I am racing to get progress reports done before they go home on Friday! Thank you for sharing your children with me for yet another amazing week! The countdown has begun to Thanksgiving and then Winter Break. I can't believe how fast it is going but I am loving every minute!

Smiles,

Miss Adams

Halloween, Nutrition and Turkeys!

What a busy week we had this week. From starting our week with our Halloween Celebration and ending with gearing up for Thanksgiving we are full steam ahead until Winter Break! I can't believe how fast it is going but as the saying goes "Time flies when you're having fun" :)

Halloween Celebration!

After having a regular morning despite the costumes the kids were ready for some pumpkin themed fun! We started by reading The Monsters Monster which inspired our Frankenstein drawings that you will see below, then students got to rotate between 4 stations: water coloring our Frankenstein's, pumpkin pattern blocks and spooky forest coloring station and finally cotton ball ghosts! We finished off our celebration with "It's the Great Pumpkin Charlie Brown" and of course some treats! Everyone had a great time!

Water coloring the Frankenstein's!

Spider pattern blocks.

Cotton ball ghosts!

Watching the video!

One of the finished Frankenstein's!

Nutrition

We have the wonderful opportunity to work with OSU's nutrition services who comes once a month to teach our class about feeding our bodies healthy foods and taking good care of ourselves. This week we talked about food groups and made "Food Group Friends." The students loved making their friends and counting how many different food groups they had used in their snack! Periodically I will be sending home information about what we are doing in class along with recipes and ideas for your to try at home!

Thankful Turkeys

With Thanksgiving right around the corner we have begun talking about what it means to be thankful. This week we made Thankful Turkeys that have items we are thankful for listed on the feathers. The students were AMAZING at coming up with what they were thankful for and took the project so seriously! I was very impressed and they turned out so well. I mean look at that writing! So great!

We are getting ready for progress reports by doing lots of assessments and of course more thanksgiving activities until Thanksgiving break! Can't wait to see what adventures we have next!

Smiles,

Miss Adams