Happy (Chinese) New Year!

Monday was the Chinese New Year holiday. We looked at this holiday as an opportunity to learn about what people who are of a different culture do to celebrate holidays.

We watched a Reading Rainbow episode that showed us the ancient Chinese art of chinese writing. The children were all really impressed that each character was like its very own piece of artwork. We discussed how their letters are different than ours and how they write differently than us.

We also got to watch a video on discovery education that taught us about the Chinese New Year celebration. We learned that it is really not that different than many of the holidays that we celebrate. One of the most important similarities that we noted was that this is a holiday celebrated with family. We all can relate this to a holiday that we celebrate with our families.

We learned that the Dragon is a symbol of power and excellence and that they use this in their celebration as a hope for the year to come.

After watching the video, we made our very own dragons using our knowledge of lines.

Then we had our very own dragon dance to celebrate the new year!

Munchie Measuring

We have measured using a lot of different nonstandard units in our classroom. We have measured using linking cubes, teddy bears, pennies, rainbow links, and even our own feet!

We have recently started measuring using standard units of measure. In order to help the children understand why it is important to have units of measure we have read the story How Big Is A Foot. In this story, no one can get the measurements correct because they all have different sized feet. This leads us in to the discussion of why we have to have standard units.

This week we decided to measure twizzlers using inches. We have been using rulers to draw line segments and measure, so this was a great reminder of how to do this.

First the students were given a length to measure. I reminded them that you have to start in the same place as everyone else in order to get the correct answer and we discussed where you start when you look at a ruler. Children always seem to get confused as to whether to start at the number 1 or the end, so this was a great way for us to reinforce that concept.

After students were given the length that they needed to measure, they were asked to use plastic knives to cut their twizzlers to that particular size. This was a great way for us to talk about safety when using knives and how to use them.

Once we finished cutting several different lengths of twizzlers, I asked the students to put them in order from the longest to the shortest.

Who knew that you could cover so much with just a few twizzlers?!

A busy start to a new year!

We are always busy, but we have been especially busy since I last updated.

Over the Christmas break all of the Kindergarten and First grade classes moved upstairs into our new K-1 Learning Center. We have wanted to add this part of our building to our school for a long time and everyone was thrilled when we were able to acquire it earlier on in the year! It tooks months of planning and renovating, but we were finally read to move on up on the last day of school before Christmas break. We had a ton of great parents helping us out and we were able to get everyone out of their old rooms and into their new rooms in less than 2 hours! I owe the dedicated parents who helped me move upstairs in the rain a HUGE HUGE HUGE thank you!!!

Over the break I got our classroom all ready for us to come right in in January and get started! We love our new space. We have lots of windows that let in lots of natural light. We have a great little corner where we can have our group time and then we have a large open area where the children can play centers like blocks or kinex! It is fantastic. The kids seem to really like our new space as well.

Our first week back at school I was called to a conference at the last minute so I missed being with the kids for two days. I hated leaving them since we were in a new place, but they adapted really quickly and did fantastic without me!

In between all of this, we have been learning lots. We started Accelerated Reader last week. This gives the students a chance to choose a book on their level and then take a quick test about it to check their comprehension. So far, everyone has had great scores and I am very proud of the students because comprehension is a higher level skill!

We have also been learning about the seasons. Mother nature has not given us a lot to work with this year, but we are gaining an understanding all the same!