Excitement's Brewing!

 Happy New Week, and almost Happy New Month!  It's time to learn some new songs and poems.  Tuesday we'll start them, so ask your child about it. 

And Happy Halloween to those who celebrate!  I hope this weekend was safe and fun.  Here are some images from the decorations for our party.  The kids really did a great job and our room is ready for the fun...

Do you see the detail in all of these?  This is because the students have already embraced the element of making multiple tries and asking peers for feedback.  Bridget and Kaylie worked on their skeletons for days.  The two girls used an anatomy book we have of the human skeleton to research what our bones really look like.  They came a long way from their first guess at a skeletal shape.  We have so many bones and these students did some hard work to show fine details like the fingers and joint connections.  Deep work!  (As always you can click on the image to get a larger view!)

This line of inquiry lead the students to discuss skeletons in general. A few friends were surprised to realize that the skeleton images are really what's inside us all... The class thought up some homework for themselves:

What animals have skeletons?  

Which ones don't?  

Please bring in answers from your research to share with the group!!!

 This week we have been thinking about different ways to collect information.  This has lead us to look at what information is shown in each type of graphic organizer.

How do you organize your ideas? 

Have you shared your strategies with your child? 

Here are two from last week:

A new strategy came up while friends were writing stories.  Friends are thinking of words that they know they will be using often in their story and are looking them up first, then writing them on a little cheat sheet for reference.  This has inspired others to think more about common themes in their stories, which helps them in general!

This week's Cross Class Connection with the 8th graders was fun.  Lisa, the 8th grade teacher, made up an activity for us to get to know each other more.  Each time she showed a category on the projector, the two classes broke into four or five groups.  Then all the kids talked about why they picked that particular group.  The energy was high and full of excitement!

Much of this week's work was about the games and around the party theme.  Many character descriptions have been started as well as stories.  I will share more of this as it comes.  The games have brought up many interesting discussion about what makes a game fun and also fair.  Tomorrow we will take our two games for a test run.  What kinks will need to be fixed?  This is part of the fun of creating our own games, seeing if we have made it engaging enough and if all the rules and instructions make sense.  Stay tuned!!!

 
I cannot wait until tomorrow's party.   I put the finishing touches on my costume tonight and am eager to see what characters the students come as. Thanks to all the parents who are helping out!  (Also, notice the great penmanship and inventive spelling done by the sign-up committee members!)

 I will post party photos soon!

Have a lovely night!  Thankfully, Jennifer