WOW Party!

Our class earned enough rewards from encore teachers to vote on a WOW party. We have earned one other party for which I chose the reward to be extra recess. This time the children voted to wear pajamas, watch a movie, and eat popcorn. We watched Spookley the Square Pumpkin. Thank you for your help last week. Below you will see how happy and how silly your child was on Pajama Day!

Pumpkin Math

When we returned to the school with our pumpkins and gourds, we used our math skills to discover how tall they were with linking cubes, what the distance around was (circumference) with chains, and we predicted if our pumpkin or gourd would sink or float. Most children predicted it would sink and even after many floated, they were sure the large class pumpkin would sink. No, we learned that all pumpkins and gourds do in fact float. We went to Wonderopolis.org to find the reason for this floating! Click on this link to learn all about the scientific reason https://wonderopolis.org/wonder/do-pumpkins-float-or-sink

Our Trip to the Pumpkin Patch

Thank you, parent volunteers, for helping Mrs. Darla and I supervise the children at Johnson Farms.

 We learned all about pumpkins and how they grow on vines.

We rode a wagon out to the field where the children chose their own pumpkins.

We had a guide show us several farm animals. We especially enjoyed seeing the baby pigs.

We also had time for play. This is one of the fun barn slides.

First Grade Reader

One of my students from last year came to read to us this week. He chose this as one of his rewards. We had another first grade student earlier this year. Our students enjoy hearing the older students read to them.

Fire Safety Month

We are very grateful that our Pleasant Hill Fire Department took time to visit our school to teach our young students about fire safety. The kids learned not to be afraid of the firemen when they are dressed in all of their gear. Even Mrs. Ewing showed us that under the gear, it is really a person that will help us. After the indoor assembly, we got to learn more about the fire engine and the ambulance.

The Tooth Wizard Assembly

We learned how to care for our teeth in an assembly put on by The Tooth Wizard and Mr. Plaque. Two of our students were called out of the audience to participate in the demonstrations. The students were highly engaged and hopefully learned the importance of caring for their teeth by eating healthy, brushing, flossing, and visiting the dentist twice a year.

Reviewing Two Dimensional Shapes

The children used problem solving and cooperative learning in order to create and present the five 2-D shapes we have studied. After planning who would make each shape, the groups set out to attempt to make a circle, square, rectangle, triangle, and hexagon with these materials: mini-marshmallows, toothpicks, and craft sticks. As they worked they found out revisions had to be made. Finally, the groups presented their creations to the class and justified that the shape was in fact a triangle because it had 3 vertices and 3 sides. The difficult shapes were the rectangle and the circle. A few groups figured out how to make them using the materials provided and also gave valid reasons for their choices (the circle had to be made with the marshmallows because circles have curved lines; the rectangle had to be made with 2 craft sticks for the long sides and 2 toothpicks for the short sides).

Johnny Appleseed Day

We have been learning about apples. On September 26 we read books about John Chapman, (later called Johnny Appleseed) and learned that he was a real man who traveled west, handing out apple seeds and small trees. We have him to thank for many of our apple orchards.

Thank you for sending in apples with your child. We had a taste test and created a class graph of our favorite kind of apple. We found out that more children like Yellow Delicious (10). The next favorite was Gala apples (7), and four children like Granny Smith apples the best. After tasting the apples, we made applesauce.

Constitution Day

We learned about our Founding Fathers and the Constitution on September 18. After watching the Schoolhouse Rock video of the Preamble, we played a memory game with photos of United States symbols, documents, George Washington, and Benjamin Franklin. To make a connection to the students' life, we signed a paper to promise to follow our school/classroom rules just like our Founding Fathers signed the Constitution, containing our laws and rights.