Thursday, December 8, 2011

13 Little Experts


Every morning we begin our day with our morning greeting and news. This is my most favorite part of the day because the personalities of your children come shining through. One of the highlights of my week is our morning meetings the day after a Charger's game. I hope you enjoy the news of our little Charger's fan as much as I do!
 
Another week has come and gone as the children continue to learn about The Three Little Pigs. This week the children continued to work on their Three Little ______ stories. On Monday and Tuesday, the children used a graphic organizer to convey what happened to each character and their home when the Big Bad _____ came. Today, we began writing our stories and the children were able to choose whether or not they wanted to begin by writing their stories through pictures, words or both. Through out the next week we will continue to work on the stories together in hopes of sharing them with you next Friday.

During morning reader's workshop we read The TRUE story of the Three Little Pigs and the children worked as a class to compare the two versions of the tale. I recorded their feedback and have it hanging on our classroom door if you would like to see what they noticed. They then filled out their own venn diagrams and wrote about whose perspective they believe the most. During our discussion we talked about how some things happen on the playground that seem to be intentional at first ("Someone threw sand at me!") but once we hear what happened from the other perspective ("I was digging a hole and didn't know you were behind me.") we realize that the story may be a little different than we had originally thought.

In Math this week we played two new math games. The first game was called +3. The children rolled a die and found the corresponding number on their chart. Upon finding the corresponding number, the children then added 3 to the number and wrote down the answer in the space provided. The game ended once the child had a row of 5 or a column of 6.  
The second and third games we played were called Roll A Scene and Roll A Story. In both games the children rolled a pair of dice and added number represented. They then had to find that number on their recording sheet and figure out which portion of the story/scene they got to draw. The game got really fun when the children were trying to figure out what combinations they needed to get the final number. I don't think they realized how many math equations they were solving in their quest to complete their story/scene.

In Science this week we had a lot of fun surrounding huffing and puffing. In one of our Huff and Puff experiments the children had to huff and puff a marble, lego, tissue and an object of their choice across the table. Prior to performing the experiment the children predicted which would be the easiest and why.

Thursday, December 1, 2011

3 Little Whats??


Well well well! Our Three Little Pig study is in full swing and going in a completely different direction then I thought it would!! My plan was to be making houses of bricks and sticks, while creating cute little pig and wolf puppets. That did not happen this week.
We began our study by reading one of the original versions of The Three Little Pigs written by Paul Galdone (Where the pigs actually get eaten!!! And then the Wolf does too!!). We followed up that reading with the reading of a very similar original-ish version written by James Marshall. Upon reading the second version of the classic tale, the children began pointing out differences right away. Comments like "No! The apple tree is in the Merry Meadow, not the Merry Garden!" or "The Pig jumped into a milk churn! Not a butter churn!" were constantly stopping the reading and allowing us to have rich discussions about the similarities and differences between the two tales. On Wednesday we spent so much time reading (and talking) that we only had 10 minutes of job time left! By the third reading of the original version I was (finally) prepared, and we began charting the similarities and differences between each of the three stories. Together as a class we revisited each story and recorded what happened in each story and learned that no story is exactly the same! To see what we discovered, please visit our room and look at the HUGE pink chart hanging (temporarily) on our white board. Today we read the Disney version of the story (and I was able to find the online video version to share!) which saved the pigs and the wolf!
Aside from all of our discoveries we have been....


Writer's Workshop:
The children are working to create their own version's of The Three Little Pigs. The children will work to create their own versions of the story, while sticking to the same plot and sequence of events. M.B brought in a version called The Three Little Aliens and the Big Bad Robot, which was a perfect way to begin our project. So far, here are the topics your children have decided on.
The Big Bad Gummy & the Three Little Gummies ~S.P
The Big Bad T-Rex & the Three Little Triceratops ~J.B
The Big Bad Doughnut and the Three Little Aliens ~S.Y
The Big Bad Red Domo and the Three Little Domos ~M.C
The Big Bad Fish and the Three Little Pigs ~N.H
The Big Bad Hat and the Three Little Faces ~V.V
The Big Bad Doughnut and the Three Little Kitties ~M.B
The Big Bad Gummy and the Three Little Saturn's ~J.C 
The Big Bad Crab and the Three Little Pigs ~K.F
The Big Bad Doughnut and the Three Little Aliens ~R.L
The Big Bad Moon and the Three Little Plutos ~P.R
The Big Bad Doughnut and the Three Little Hearts ~A.K
The Big Bad Pumpkin and the Three Little Bears ~E.L

Reader's Workshop:
This week the children began reading independently as a whole class, and loved it! On Tuesday we met as a class and came up with all of the things, and ways, we could read and put them together in a big colorful list that is now hanging in our rest and read area. The children then spread out throughout the room to read books from their book baggies, looked at picture books, tried to read chapter books and shared books from our classroom library and read aloud shelf. During this time, I rotate through out the class and read "Just Right" books one-on-one with 3-4 children each day. My favorite quote came from A.K on Wednesday morning when she asked "When is Readers Workshop? I can't wait to sound out the words in my book!" So far so good!

Math:
During Math job time, we worked on measuring with a ruler through a variety of activities. The children worked to make sturdy homes that had to be exactly 12 inches high and were made up of at least 10 objects. Prior to starting, the children went around the room looking in baskets and on shelves to decide on the object they would use, then recorded which object they chose and why they chose it. We then met as a group and the children had the option to either work independently on their building, or work with the other children that had chosen the same object. After 10 minutes of building time, their structures were complete and it was time for the Big Bad Wolf (me) to try and blow them down. The class were great builders, but I was able to blow over two structures :)

We also used our measuring skills to measure pig tails (and idea I got from Ellen Monfredi). The children first estimated how long the pig tail would be then stretched it out and measured it with a ruler.
It has been a great week and I have no idea what the class has in store for me next week (but I do have ideas of my own).
~Lisa D.