We continued our weather unit this week by learning about the elements that make up weather (wind, heat, pressure, and precipitation) and how they are measured. We also started an evaporation experiment.  We put water in 2 cups and covered one with a baggie.  Ask your child which cup is evaporating faster.

     Thank you to one of our parents who is a Reading Specialist and came in to do a lesson with the students.  She read and discussed with us a folktale  called The Fisherman and His Wife. 

There were wonderful illustrations displayed on the white board that went along with the story.

The students discuss aspects of the folktale with each other.

Our presenter and her daughter!  The students in the background are working on sequencing the story.  I hope they used the illustrations to tell you the story after school.                             Next week is Catholic Schools week.  Please follow the schedule for the dress down days.  We will not use the reading series that week but we will be starting our Flat Stanley unit.  Look for more information coming home.

Oh, the Weather Outside is Frightful...

We have had some fun this week learning about weather.  I put a Prezi together that you may be able to view on your computer.  If not, I am also putting the links that we used this week to learn about the water cycle and clouds. 
 Weather Prezi

 Water Cycle Video on youtube 

Water Cycle Song 

3 Types of Clouds 

Below are the  cloud pictures the students made.  We learned about cumulus, cirrus, and stratus clouds.  When the class came in from recess on Friday they told me there were stratus clouds in the sky!

We also spent time this week learning about MLK Jr. through books, our Scholastic News, and videos.  Each student wrote about his/her own dream for the future.  I think the writings show a lot of compassion and consideration for other people and animals.

Fun Friday was filled with fabulous activities to reinforce what we learned this week. (Ask your child why that phrase is called alliteration!)

We are playing a dice game to practice our place value skills to 1000!

We are listening to Country Mouse, City Mouse by Jan Brett, our Author of the Month.

We are reading a poem and identifying the rhyming words.

This center is where we made the cloud pictures.

The ipad center is a favorite- everyone can choose their own program to play.

Every Friday we make a book for the Star Student to take home.  We like to write nice things about our classmates.

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Sometimes the teacher takes a break and lets one of the students take over. :-)  Here we are listening to a Clifford book from the Scholastic Storia program.  A student is running the interactive program and calling other students up to participate.  Check out the Scholastic website to download your own free Storia account for your computer.               I hope everyone enjoys the long weekend.  We sure have had a lot of days off recently, haven't we?

 

Snow Days!

     It was a short but productive week!  We managed to get almost all of the digital stories done that we've been working on for weeks.  Most of you should have received the digital story by email but there were a few technical glitches which I will try to work out this week.  I hope you enjoyed them, it was a fun process.  The students especially enjoyed hearing their recording of the story.  I can't cut and paste an example for you but if you go to the link below you can view one of the stories.  A snow story
Be sure to click on the speaker icon so you can hear the story read. 

      This week we'll be reading and writing about MLK Jr. and continuing our unit on weather.  

    The last week in January is Catholic Schools Week.  It is a spirit-filled week that ends in a pep rally.  We will not follow the regular reading series but we will be working on lots of reading and writing.  I have a few guest presenters lined up for that week so it should be fun.

This week it is the students' turn to blog. Below is their writing about some of their favorite activities and places at DeSales.

The best laid plans... don't always work out when there is technology involved!  The students all wrote about different activities we do at DeSales and it should have been posted last week but the internet was down at DeSales and the weather caused an electrical delay so I am just getting this up.  The writing is a collaborative effort involving the whole class.  They really enjoyed being "reporters" so we will probably do it again soon.  Since this was a new way to write, we tried not to edit too much.  I liked letting the children's "voices" show through in their writing.   And now for the students' writing:

Monday Morning Meeting is fun.  At Christmas we sing Christmas songs and we talk about kind stuff to do for other people.  We learn not to bully.  Morning message is a fun way to have conversations with each other.  You do tons of singing and dancing.  All of these teachers have something new to say every year for us to learn and, by the way, there is a can for any kind of change you have left over.

Music is the coolest thing.  We do instruments.  We do funny things and the parachute.  Sometimes we watch a movie if we are good.  One time the music made me laugh.  I picked Music to write about because I love to sing songs.  In Music we once got to play the drums.  We also get special awards for good behavior.  This is what happens if the class is good; we earn a star.  When we get 30 stars we get to sit next to a friend. Sometimes we sing a song about puppets.  I love music.

I like gym.  Gym is fun.  We play Grinch Tag and basketball.  I like Gym, it is fun.  PE is my favorite special ever.  It is fun.  You get hot and sweaty.  We play games.  Our teacher is Mr. Wilson.  He is fun.  He lets us play Dodgeball.  I like P.E because you get to run and it is fun.  You get to play fun games. 

I picked the library for my favorite place in the school.  It is fun because you can pick out books.  The library teacher is Mrs. Deeks. Library is very fun.  We get 2 books.  the teacher tells us a story.  Sometimes we get candy canes.  Library is the best!

In Technology we do fun games and we do writing.  We read about countries and continents.  We play math games.  I like playing games and creating a car. I like Tech.

Art has always been a favorite thing of mine to do.  I have been doing art since I have been little.  I like to draw and make objects out of paper.  My two favorite drawings were my "Fingers" and "Jungle" pictures.  I even had my projects hanging up in the Market Street Art Gallery and in a restaurant.  This is why Art is my favorite.     I love Art!  That's why I picked it.  I liked the gumball machine we did.  Art is my favorite.  The best part about Art is Mrs. Kruse.  Art is the best class ever!  I like Art because it is fun, but not just fun, it is so cool at Art.  In all of the grades they make stuff.  We are making a tree of life.  It is hard but it is so, so, so, so, fun!                                                

I love playing in the snow at school.  One day when I was playing outside in the snow, I fell on a pile and slid down it.  I did not get hurt, it was fun.  I can't wait to go out again.  I like snow recess because I like going down the slide and bumping into the snow pile.

Sr. Mary is a  Headsprout teacher.  She helps us read our books.  I will help Sr. Mary when she needs it.  Sr. Mary is a very helpful lady.  Sr. Mary was a good teacher for all of us.  I went through 80 Headsprout reading levels.  Sr. Mary and I are best friends.  At the end, Sr. Mary gave us a chapter book.  I love Sr. Mary.  Sr. Mary is the best teacher in the school.   Dear Sr. Mary, thank you for teaching me Headsprout and helping us and making us good readers and being nice and kind and helping us spell words.  (It is very sad for all of us that Sr. Mary is no longer at DeSales- she will be missed.)

I hope you enjoyed the students' writing.  Here are a few more photos from our activities.  Above, the middle schoolers came around to carol to all of the classes.

We loved presenting our traditions to the class.  Some of the children are showing items that they brought in to talk about.

The students did a great job on their sandwich book reports.  This class loves reading!

    Thank you again for all of the lovely gifts, you were very generous.  Enjoy your vacation!

Traditions!

We had a special visitor come in this week to read this week's reading selection, Officer Buckle and Gloria, to both of the second grade classes. 

We worked on our invitations for the Generation Celebration on Jan. 8th.  Grandparents are invited to come worship with us for this special mass in their honor.  There will be light refreshments after the mass.

The second graders joined together to take a "trip around the world" as we learned about Christmas celebrations and customs from different countries.  In our room we "visited" Iceland where we watched a ppt, colored the Icelandic flag, made a Yule angel, and received a traditional Icelandic gift- a candle.  In Miss Agostini's room we "traveled" to Australia where we viewed Australian Christmas cards, heard an Australian Christmas carol, colored the flag, and made place mats with scenes from Australia.  We will visit two more countries next week.

We have been talking about traditions this holiday season.  Above the students are checking out one of my traditions- musical Santas for the classroom.  Reminder: the students should be prepared to present one of their own family traditions on Wed., 12/18.  They can bring an item to show or just tell us about the tradition.

The classroom is looking very festive with our holiday projects.  Pictured are gingerbread man glyphs.  Glyphs are a way to present information with symbols rather than words.  Using the legend to translate the meaning, you can find out what kind of cookie the student likes, how many letters are in his/her name, etc.

We collaborated on our writing project this week.  Each student wrote about a tradition which was then typed and displayed on the Smart Board.  As a class we helped each other revise our writing to give more detail and organization.  The students decorated trees on which to paste the writing. These wonderful stories will be sent home in time for Christmas.

Reminder: the sandwich book reports are due on Monday.  We have already enjoyed some that were brought in; the students are doing a great job.  
 Our Christmas party will be on Thursday, 12/19 from 2-2:30.  We are treating it as a birthday party for Jesus.  The room mothers will be contacting parents to bring a treat.

We will be rocking the house at the Christmas mass on Friday.  The mass starts at 9AM to allow time for all of the Christmas carols we sing.  Everyone is invited.  It is a half day so if you want to take your child home after the mass, just send in a note that morning.

NO spelling, vocabulary, or reading test this week!! We will have a +4 test on Wed. and a chapter test in math on Thurs.  Review pages will be coming home on Wed.