Weekly Wrap Up

Thank you so much to everyone who helped to make the winter party a huge success!  The kids enjoyed the games, crafts and food that was provided and were able to have some fun together before we headed off for winter break.  Here are some pictures from our afternoon.

  

We were also lucky to have Caroline's mom come in as a mystery reader.  It was fun to listen to her read Lily's Big Day by Kevin Henkes.  Thanks for taking the time to come surprise us!

2 Countries in 1 Day

If your student came home with jet lag, Wednesday was a day full of travel!  In the morning we traveled to Mexico to learn about Christmas there.  We learned that the flower associated with Christmas, the poinsettia, came from Mexico.  After reading Tomie DePaola's book, The Legend of the Poinsettia, everyone created a poinsettia of their own.  In the afternoon, the students traveled with Mrs. McAndrew to the Netherlands where Sinter Klaas paid them a visit and left the a treat in their "wooden shoes!"

Holidays Around The World

Monday we began our look at holidays that are celebrated around the world with a trip to Israel to learn about Hanukkah. We heard a story, learned how to light a menorah, played the dreidel game and then created a six-pointed star that matches the Israeli flag. The students are excited to find out where we will be traveling next!  

Our Trip To India

This afternoon the students visited the country of India to learn about Diwali.  They found out that Diwali means row of lights and got to make paper lanterns to celebrate.  The holiday also calls for sweet treats so the students were able to enjoy a banana with some whipped topping!  Wait and see where our adventures take us next!

Long Ago Experience

It was a lot of fun to try out all of the artifacts brought in by the Ohio Historical Society when they came for our History To Go program. Here are some photos of all the children experienced. 

Hour of Code

We had a great time this week participating in the Hour of Code. We started off coding on the Smartboard as we tried to get the Angry Bird to the pig. Each level became trickier and trickier as there were more lines of code necessary to succeed. You can give it a try by going to https://studio.code.org/hoc/1. 

We also explored code using the free app Kodable. This was another great opportunity for the students to get exposure to coding. I highly recommend having them show you how to use these two coding activities. It is fun and challenging for children and adults!

December Has Arrived

It's hard to believe we are already to December. The year is flying by!  We are spending December focusing on subtraction strategies and story problems. The students have learned how to use a number line (my favorite!) and should know when to use the count back strategy and the count up strategy. 

Counting up works best when the numbers you are subtracting are close together. For example: 9-7=?  Students should think 7 in their head and count up 2 more to get to nine. Then they would know the answer is 2. 

Count back works when the number that is being removed is a small number. For example: 8-2=?  Students should think 8 in their mind and the count backward 2 numbers to end at 6. Posing different questions and asking them which strategy makes the most sense is great practice. 

We have also been using cubes on our part-part-whole mats to show our thinking. 

Thanks to Michaela's mom for stopping by to read to the class. It was fun to hear a story written just for Michaela!  The students really enjoyed this book from putmeinthestory.com.