Friday, January 20, 2012

Oh The Things We Learn...

As I sit here to blog on a Friday night, my mind is drawing a blank as to what it was we learned about this week. I suppose that it why I usually blog on Thursdays! Let's see how this goes...
Math:
In math this week we began exploring the 100s chart (as we gear up for learning about Charles Schulz' age when he passed away). The children spent one meeting time pointing out all of the patterns they recognized within the chart and discussing why all of the numerals (yup, you can ask them to tell you the difference between a numeral and number) were written in the order they were. One of our main focuses this week and last (and likely next) has been on both place value and number reversals. 
The children also worked both collaboratively and independently to solve word problems about Charles Schultz. I was not the best photographer this week so here is and example of one of the word problems they worked on.

Charles Schulz had _____ black pens.  He needs to put them in boxes.  _____ black pens fit in each box.  How many boxes can he fill with the black pens?
 (10, 5) (10, 2) (20, 10) (20,5) (20,4) (30, 10) (30,15) (30,5) (30,3)
 
They also merged their artistic abilities with their math skills with a brand new game called Grab and Draw. The game was inspired by an illustration Charles Schulz created when he was a student. The children loved this game and the results were pretty impressive!
This week the children also chose the character they would like to draw on their canvas. They spent a lot of time practicing in their sketch book and we should be ready to start working on our canvases next week! We also began making our own Peanuts coloring book with our illustrations! Here is a peek at one of them.
"Sally"
Writer's Workshop:
We have been writing A LOT about Charles Schultz this week. From creating our own comic strips to writing our Did'ya Know?! statements, the children have been busy! To help frame each until of study, I will often use a KWL (Know, Want to Know, Learn) chart to see what the class is most interested in. It provides me with a lot of insight and helps guide the lessons. This year for the "Learn" portion of the study, we are filling out Did'ya Know speech bubbles to share what we have learned. My favorite was this one.. "Did You Know... That Peppermint Patty sometimes calls Charlie Brown 'You Sly Dog'." Who knew?!
Reader's Workshop:
We have begun a new read aloud... Pippi Longstocking. We have enjoyed discussing some of the big words that are used in the story, and how we could figure out what they may mean. We also have been discussing her character and the choices she makes and how she handles the situations she is in.
During independent reading time the children have been reading their book baggy books both independently and with me. They are now able to read quietly for almost 20 minutes, allowing me lots of one-on-one time.

Global Buddies:
We are gearing up for my trip to Tanzania in February and trying to involve the whole school. On Thursday the children decorated flyers that will be distributed (by them) to the whole school next Thursday. After corresponding with the principal of the school in Tanzania I was told that they would like sharpened colored pencils and pencils, block erasers and hand held pencil sharpeners. When I shared this news with our Global Buddies they were quite disappointed that they couldn't send water, clothes and food. This opened up a great discussion about the amount of stuff I was able to bring, the weight of various items and which items can be shared among many people.

Another great week has come and gone :( See you next week!



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