Ann and Sandy Cross trip

 Room 16 currently has no volunteers for our trip to Ann and Sandy Cross on February 4. We need at least 3 volunteers to make this trip happen and meet our required ratios. Please let me know by Wednesday January 29 if you are able to help out on this trip. We appreciate your support!!

Updates

Room 15 and 16 still need volunteers for the following field trips:

Wednesday, January 29th - Arts Commons (all day)
Tuesday, February 4th - Ann and Sandy Cross (all day)
Please email if you are available.

This week we did some class research to find out more about community helpers. Facts we were looking for included what they do, what tools and equipment they use, where they work and what type of uniform they wear and why. We talked about the table of contents in a non-ficiton book and how it can direct us to what we are looking for. We used books and watched videos to gather information then students created a booklet representing their information in different ways (writing, drawing, labeling and building).

Please make sure your child has snow pants, boots and mitts for next week as we will be going outdoors for some of our learning.  

Field Trip Volunteer Request

We have two upcoming field trips and are looking for parent volunteers to join us! If you have a current police clearance completed and are available to join us, please email your child's teacher. Both rooms 15 and 16 will be on the field trips on the following days:
Wednesday, January 29th - Arts Commons (all day)
Tuesday, February 4th - Ann and Sandy Cross (all day)

Gymnastics
This week we started our gymnastics unit. On gymnastics days, students are reminded to have their hair pulled back and not wear leggings. In the gym, students will be asked to remove any jewelry that they are wearing (bracelets, necklaces) as well as their shoes and socks. Students will also be asked to tuck in their shirt. This week we started using the mats, next week we will be adding some gymnastics equipment.

Sweaters
With the cold weather this week, our classroom has been a bit chilly. Students are welcome to bring an extra sweater and leave it on their coat hook incase they get cold throughout the day.

Community

Reminder: No school for students on Friday January 10.

Weather: We want to remind parents and students that we need to be prepared to go outside everyday as long as it is not a blue day. Students should have snow pants, boots, gloves and hat. Today was quite windy and we had some chilly kids. 

As we learn about places and people in our community, we decided to transform our classroom into a town during explore time. Students choose an occupation and spend their time role playing in their work location. We have engineers, architects and construction workers creating and building famous landmarks, using tools, foam and blocks. At our vet office, we have a hospital, xray viewer and lab where the doctors are creating medicine. The doctors are charting their diagnosis, bandaging up animals and managing money as patients come in for different services. At the ice cream shop and restaurant, the waiters and chefs take customer orders, create menu items and calculate costs of items. We have an engineering station that focuses on cause and effect relationships as rube goldberg machines are being designed and tested. 

Our dramatic play centers are the focus of our writing and students are recording and reflecting on activities while focusing on writing details, adding spaces, upper and lowercase letters and a detailed picture.

During math, we read a book about beavers bundling their sticks into groups of 5 and focused on skip counting using the hundreds chart.

Today both classes met with their grade 3 buddies. Ask your child what activity they did with a buddy. 

Melting Snowman

This afternoon we completed a fun science experiment. We put on our safety goggles and got right to work!

If you would like to try this experiment at home, you will need the following materials: baking soda, salt, dish soap, water and vinegar.

First, in a deep container, mix 1 cup of baking soda with 1 tablespoon of salt. Then, add 1/2 a teaspoon of dish soap and mix all of the ingredients together. Finally, add 4 tablespoons of water (pour in a little bit at a time and continue mixing). Mix until you are able to form sphere shapes to make a snowman. To make your snowman "melt" pour vinegar overtop. Watch closely to see what happens!

After watching our snowmen "melt" we talked about chemistry. We learned that when baking soda (solid) and vinegar (liquid) mix, they react and create a gas called carbon dioxide!

A Gingerbread Community!

The students in Room 15/16 have started to learn about communities. We have talked about the communities we live in, the important buildings and people in our communities and the difference between urban, suburban and rural communities.

Next week on Monday and Tuesday the students will be building a gingerbread community in our classroom! Each student has made a plan for a specific building they will be creating. Each student will make their building on a piece of cardboard so they are easy to transport home at the end of the week. We will be using graham crackers, icing and candies to decorate. This week, students made a materials list outlining the types and numbers of candies that they will need for their building. This is just like an iLab plan! They will be getting only the materials that they have written down on their list. Together, we created a shopping list to make sure everyone would have what they need. These materials are specifically for building. We have talked about how we are using candies to decorate, but students will be reminded not to eat any of the candies, graham crackers or icing at school. On Wednesday or Thursday next week, students will be able to bring their building home! Since we will be working on these buildings together and we will be putting our community together on the floor in our classroom (the cardboard pieces will be placed on the floor), we recommend that the buildings only be used for decoration once they come home. The boys and girls are very excited about this project! If you have any questions or concerns about this, please let use know.

Reminder: Monday is fun sock day and we have caroling at 9:30am in the gym

Stuffy Party?

We were shocked to walk in the classroom this morning and find that our stuffies had a bit of a party last night while we were away! This is what we saw when we walked in the door:

We were inspired by their overnight adventures, which made us think about other adventures that our stuffies might enjoy. We spent the morning writing comics using our stuffy as the main character. We learned about the parts of a comic and the similarities and differences between comics and regular picture books. Our comics included our stuffy as the main character, an adventure of some kind and some thought bubbles and speech bubbles.

This afternoon we started planning our gingerbread community buildings. Can your child remember which building they will be creating? Gingerbread building will be happening on Monday and Tuesday afternoons next week from 1-2:15pm.