Read Across America and Audubon Field Trip

We returned from vacation to a fun-filled week.

Thursday was Read Across America Day, which honors Dr. Seuss on his birthday. To recognize this special day, many classes decorated their classroom doors based on a favorite book. We have been reading and listening to many books by the funny author, Robert Munsch. After a secret ballot vote, the class chose The Paper Bag Princess as our theme. The children had fun creating adorable Paper Bag Princesses and Princes, and some even created speech bubbles for their character.

Be sure to check out our fun door when you come in for your child's conference!

We also had a guest reader come into the classroom on Thursday to read to the class. Mary Dinsmore, who works in Central Office, read one of her favorite books, The Circus Ship. Unfortunately I forgot to take any pictures of the kids as they were mesmerized by this fun story.

Today, we had our wonderful field trip to Maine Audubon. A big thank you to our chaperones, Sarah McGibbon, Amy Haskins, Grace Phillips and Holly Karolkowski for joining us. Although it was chillier than it has been lately, the kids were prepared for the cold and really enjoyed their time outside.

We explored how snowflakes are all different, but that they all have 6 sides and are symmetrical. Did you know that the temperature determines the type of snowflake that is made?

We practiced walking like different Maine animals and learned that if we know how an animal walks, it can help us identify their tracks in the snow. It was fun to try to figure out what animals made the tracks on winter snow picture.

 The winter scene to the right helped us learn what Maine animals do in the winter. We knew about hibernation and migration. Some new words for many of us were brumation, dormant and active!

When we were outside, we explored a lot. We saw animal scat and learned that examining it (yes, we thought that was funny!) helps us learn what animals eat. We also got to see lots of places for animals to sleep and stay warm in the winter. There were animals pelts to examine and pet. The honking geese flying overhead were fun to listen to too.

Valentines

We had lots of  kindness and sweetness on our February 15th "Valentines Day!"

Thanks to all who contributed goodies for our party, and especially to Erin Canedy and Holly Karolkowski for helping to make it all happen!

15 Days of Kindness

During the month of February, we are focusing on being kind in our classroom community.

Mrs. Mason has collected a wide selection of books that focus on kindness and empathy for us to read and discuss during our Read Alouds, and for the kids to browse.

The children are trying to "capture" their classmates being kind and recognizing them by writing their kind act on a heart.

Each Day we review the kind hearts from the previous day, and then add them to our "Sprinkles of Kindness" bulletin board.

You can ask your child if they noticed any kindness in our classroom today.

Guided Reading

During our hour literacy block, I meet with small groups of students for Guided Reading.
During this time we work on many reading activities that help the kids learn the skills they need to read and comprehend more difficult texts independently. 
Following are some photos that show some of the activities we do during Guided Reading.

We preview books before reading by taking a "picture walk." We make predictions about what the book is about, and look for words that may be tricky to read.

 Before reading, we also practice reading words that may be "word stoppers" during our reading.

Our "tools of the trade" = great books and our bookmarks, that include the "Beanie Baby Strategies that we use to solve unknown words.

We read with a partner or take turns with our group.

We read to ourselves.

We read... and read... and read!!










 

We use "whisper phones" to listen to our own reading, which helps us read more fluently.

 

 We write about our reading.

 

We play with the words that we find in our reading.

We practice reading "high frequency words" which helps us read fluently.

 We love reading!!

Snow Fun with Learning Buddies!

Last Friday we had a lot of fun playing in the snow with our 4th grade Learning Buddies from Mrs. Dadmun's class.

We challenged those that were interested, to work with their buddy to make the biggest snowball on the playground.  There was some awesome collaboration and teamwork! And, lots of smiles!

I wasn't able to take pictures of everyone, but these few capture a fun filled Friday afternoon.