Happy Leap Year

   We are in the middle of our unit on living and non-living things and the kids seem to really enjoy this study! They are so engaged in the process of deciding if something is living or not. While I was getting the books out for reading groups I overheard a few little conversations about the seven characteristics of living things and boy were they deep in thought!!! Some students were talking through if yogurt was living due to the fact that it has "live active cultures so technically those things are alive but yogurt doesn't move by itself"... HAHA! We are ready to audition for an Activia commercial that's for sure! :) Rest assured we corrected any misconceptions and we are clear on what is living and what is non-living.
   Also, an update on our brine shrimp- we think we saw one that hatched under the videoscope but we are not totally sure, so we increased the amount of water and salt in the individual habitats in hopes of more eggs hatching. We will keep you posted.

Please ask your child what kind thing they did today; we talked about how we were lucky enough to have an extra day this year and ways that we might take advantage of it!
Happy Tuesday, Happy Leap Year :)

Gallon Man

  For the conclusion of our unit on measurement we asked that families send in recyclables to build a real life gallon man. Thank you so very much for all of the containers! I cut some of them down to where they would be exactly 8, 16, or 32 ounces and we used measuring cups to see that the containers held the accurate amount that we were labeling them as. I set up the task at a center and had students put together the pieces to create it themselves without a template for authentic instruction and to see how well they did with the application of their knowledge. I cut out a little head from one container and mixed a few extra containers in the pile to where they would not use process of elimination. Overall, the students did a great job with reasoning through the large puzzle. Here is a cute video of two of my students; listen to the way they reason through what goes where on gallon man.

(The video looks a little grainy on here so, parents of the two students, let me know if you want a copy of the video!)

Looking Back at Writer's Workshop

     Here is a peek at us looking through our Writer’s Workshop binders to see how far our writing has come since the beginning of the year. The kids noticed an improvement in punctuation use, grammar, and even content quality. They had so much fun; look at their little faces!!!

BrainPop Jr. ...on the ceiling?!?

     Since it is half way through the school year we are all very comfortable with each other and our classroom routine so, it is time for me to change things up a little bit to keep everyone engaged and cooperating. We have a great time with our explorations on the internet; specifically on BrainPop Jr., which is actually a reward in our room believe it or not! So, to change things around instead of projecting on the board I propped the projector up to show the clips on the ceiling! We had so much fun! It was almost like stargazing but we were learning and I didn’t hear one complaint about who is or is not sitting on their bottom and blocking anyone’s view. J

Take a look at how cute they are!!!

What I Love this Wednesday

  Another week into the school year, and I am even more impressed with my students! They continue to wow me with their bright ideas and creative approach to each task at hand. They make the day such an enjoyable time for me and more importantly, for each other. I am very happy with how we are growing and learning. Simply put- I love teaching.

What I love this Wednesday:
-Our first attempt at compound sentences through a whole class interactive sentence strip activity was a great success (Thank you Miss Troha!)
-The Tenacious Teacher podcast available on iTunes (This is great to listen to while I am grading papers. The topics vary from podcast to podcast but there is a lot of great info on differentiation and learning styles)
-Looking back at our writing from the beginning of the year in our Writer's Workshop binders; this was a trip! The kids noticed how some of us didn't even use punctuation!!! Please ask your child about this activity.

Dr. German- Dental Health Month

In honor of Dental Health Month we invited orthodontist Dr. German to come in and speak with our students. He talked to us about why we have teeth, being omnivores, the three types of teeth, and the many different types of dentists! The presentation was both informative and entertaining. Many thanks and big smiles from Hillel!

100th Day of School

    For the one hundredth day of school we decided to celebrate by sending one hundred cards to Dayton Children’s Hospital. The kids wrote beautiful, heartfelt messages to send “happiness and health” to the children who may not be able to celebrate the one hundredth day of school in school. We hope the children enjoy reading the cards as much as we enjoyed creating them!

(Also, I know I mentioned posting the process and final product but seeing as I am accident prone I happened to click factory reset on my camera in the middle of our optometry presentation. I am so sorry for deleting the pictures! I only have the one picture I emailed you earlier.)

   

Look at all of their beautiful cards!

Birds of Prey at Hillel

    As part of our partnership with Aullwood Audubon Nature Center and Farm, Tom Hissong came to Hillel to present Birds of Prey; it was an interactive look into the predator prey relationship of birds that started with a real life meeting of a Kestrel and concluded with the dissection of owl pellets! The kids were so engaged. The level of thought put into their questions was impressive to say the least. It was refreshing to see their curiosity take over any reluctances as they peeled the pellets right open and start to pull apart the fur and bones and match them to the bone sorting chart. They were prodigious little naturalists. 

Engineers Month

February is National Engineers Month so we had Ed Schlaack of the Montgomery County Water Services come in to talk about his career as an engineer. He read the book, Not all Engineers Drive Trains by The College of Engineering, Iowa State University and exposed us to many career options in the field of engineering. The children thoroughly enjoyed the presentation and we were very grateful for his visit.