Field Tri to Sci Works!

Two Weeks ago, our class had the opportunity to get to go on a field trip to SciWorks in Winston Salem. The children were so excited to get on "the big bus" and watch a movie on the way there. Since we don't have a bus, this is a rare treat!

Once we arrived, there was so much to explore and do!

We even got to play a life-size game of Operation!

And got to get a larger than life view of our teeth and gums!

This machine was really neat! It had two pendulums attached to a pen. They swung in oposite directoins and drew a neat little picture. You can bet that the kids loved this! They are such artists!

This one gave us a little bit of an exerience with force and motion. When you had the tire spinning you could swivel the chair different directions just by leaning it from side to side! I still can't figure out how it worked, but it was really, REALLY cool!

The air chair, of course, was a huge hit! There was a big line all day to get to go up in it!



The highlight of our trip was getting to visit the planetarioum. This tied in with what we have been studying in science and the kids were amazed! We got to see lots of different stars and exlplore each planet. I learned a lot! Did you know that some planets are called "Gas Giants" and are made completely of gas? Or that Earth is classified as a "Rocky Midget"? Me neither! I also learned that Jupiter, Uranus, and Neptune have rings! I always thought it was just Saturn. The show was very cool and exciting.

Going along with another science theme, there were animal habitats for us to explore. They had lots of creepy crawly animals that we could observe and fish to watch swim.

I think the part that the children enjoyed the most was the sound station downstairs. They loved making lots of noise on lots of different things. There were windchimes, xylohones, and a huge piano that they could run and jump on. We couldn't tear them away!

All in all a wonderful field trip!

Celebrating Black History Month

This month we have been learning about different important people in Black History. We did a group activity to learn about 4 very important people: Martin Luther King Jr, Ruby Bridges, Harriet Tubman, and Rosa Parks. I split the children up into groups using the random chooser on our smart board. Each group was responsible for learning about a particular person and then creating some type of poster to show to the other children in our class. Within the groups, each child had a specific job. The reader read a short book about the person that the group was learning about, the recorder did the writing, the materials manager was responsible for getting all of the materials that they needed, and the presenter presented their person during a gallery walk after we were finished.

The groups did a fantastic job! I loved walking around and getting to see the way the posters were coming along. (They are in our hallway if you'd like to check them out!)

After each group completed their poster, we did a gallery walk. Each group's presenter shared their poster with the different groups as they walked around from group to group. They started out by sharing with their own groups to get all of their facts together and then we spent 2 minutes at each presenter, learning about the different people that they represented.

We also read one of my favorite books that describes a true story of a man who mailed himself to freedom, Henry's Freedom Box.

The children really enjoyed the story about Henry. After we read it, we got a huge box and put ourselves into it to see how Henry might have felt when he mailed himself the 27 hours to Philadelphia. The kids made comments like "it's dark" and "it's cramped". They began to understand how Henry would have felt, but how important it was to him to get to freedom. They learned that he didn't care about those things...all he cared about was being free to make his own choices.

After we had put ourselves into Henry's shoes, we made our own Freedom Boxes. I encouraged the children to think about what they would want to have in their box if they were going to mail themselves. Some of the things that they would have liked to have included pillows to keep comfortable, a friend so they wouldn't be lonely, food, maps, and compasses. They did a great job empathizing with Henry!

We also learned about Spirituals. Many of us have heard these songs before, but didn't realize the full meaning of them. One of our gallery walk groups taught us about Harriet Tubman and we learned that she was nicknamed "Moses" because she delivered so many people from slavery. We listened to some of the songs and found out that they were actually secret coded maps to freedom! We discussed the songs and what they might mean...

For example:

Follow the drinking gourd This line means follow the big dipper.

Follow the drinking gourd

For the old man is a waitin This means that someone will be waiting there

'For to carry you to freedom to show you the way to get to freedom.

Follow the drinking gourd

The riverbank will make a mighty good road This tells us to follow the river.

The dead trees show you the way This tells us landmarks along the way.

Left foot, peg foot travelin' on

Following the drinking gourd

The kids thought this was so cool that the slaves used secret code to escape to freedom!

We have learned a lot about Black History and all of the people who helped make things the way they are for us today where we can be free to make our own choices. Thank you to all of those people! It is hard for us to imagine a world where people are not free and can't do what they choose, so I hope that these activities gave the children an idea of how lucky we are to have that freedom and an understanding of how things were in the past.

Happy 100th Day of School!

Last Friday our class celebrated the 100th day of school. This was a great time for us to think back on our school year so far and to take time to think about all the different ways we can get to 100!

The children had an assignment to create a 100th day of school poster using groups of tens. They did a phenomenal job! These were some of the best posters I had ever seen! They made our hallway look fantastic!

Each child was able to explain what they chose and share how they got to 100! We had lots of great ideas including making a picture, making patterns, and making collections!



In one of our Weekly Reader magazines, we learned about being heart healthy. We learned that exercise is really important in keeping our hearts pumping, which keeps our whole body healthy. We decided to do 100 exercises to help us be healthy! We did 10 jumping jacks, mountain climbers, stretches, push ups, sit ups, frog hops, snake crawls, toe touches, and arm circles with each arm to equal 100 exercises! We felt great after finishing and I know our hearts were pumping!

We also spent some time counting to 100 different ways and reading some 100th day of school books. One of our favorites was 100th Day Worries. This book was about a little girl not sure of what to put on her 100th day of school poster and she finds 100 bits of love from her family.

We did a little 100th day measuring as well. In groups, we used unifix cubes, mini cubes, and rainbow links to measure 100. This was a great activity for us to see why units of measure are so important. First, we estimated which one we thought would make the longest train. Then the groups made trains and we put them in order from longest to shortest. We found out that it is important to say what you are measuring with so that you don't get mixed up!

We had a great 100th day of school!

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!

The 12 Days of Christmas continues!!!

Last Thursday as we continued to "visit" places all over North Carolina, we learned about the National Gingerbread contest that takes place each year at the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, NC.

We learned that people work for months and months preparing their houses. We also learned that each house has to be made completely out of edible, unwrapped materials. We got to look at several different videos that people had taken from the contest and some of those houses were amazing! We also took a little peak at the gingerbread replica of the Biltmore House that is displayed each year in the kitchen. We learned that the Biltmore House is the biggest house in the United States and the children thought the pictures were really neat, especially when they got to see the HUGE Christmas tree that is placed in the dining hall each year.

In honor of the Gingerbread contest, we made our own gingerbread houses on Friday. The kids had a ball.

Everyone got a little sticky!

The houses turned out fantastic! It took a little work to get the houses together, but once they finally got them ready they decorated them with all kinds of candy and they looked amazing! The children had lots of good ideas as to how to decorate and where things should go.