Geometry

We are studying shapes, including properties of 2-D and 3-D shapes. Children have been making circles and spheres, squares and square prisms, rectangles and rectangular prisms, etc. We took a shape walk around the building and made a shape poster of all the cones, pyramids, cylinders, and prisms we found around the building. We have built these shapes with playdough, comparing wooden or colored blocks to what we are building.

We have made two dimensional shapes on geoboards using rubber bands. We made a shape book in the format of "a square is a square until you add a roof and a chimney, and then it's a house." We followed this up with a mural we made of a ski slope, using shapes to fill in the skiers and the parts of the ski mountain. We have also filled in puzzles trying out assortments of pattern blocks that can all be used to fill the same shape. Another example of this is Fill the Hexagon in which children find as many different ways as possible to make a hexagon.

An offshoot of this study of shapes is a renewed interest in building elaborate block structures. The most challenging activity we have done is to build structures out of snap cubes. Children are asked to duplicate three-dimensional structures, learning to count cubes, telling themselves whether to put more cubes on this side or that side as they figure out how to describe the structure to themselves. .

Our Bodies

We began work on our brains and nervous system a month ago. We have since added our digestive system, including intestines, and our lungs. The pictures show children making their spines and measuring out the length of their intestines, 30 feet on average. We do a lot of writing about our bodies in language arts, after reading about the system and then making a poster about the concepts we have learned. When children write in their own book, they refer to the poster, as well as consulting books about what they are studying.

The Fix-It Shop

We have been having a great time in our fix-it shop. We started by taking apart a typewriter, finding many parts that we never expected. The hardest part is those stubborn screws that are buried deeply inside the appliances. It takes muscle power! We have moved onto taking apart a vacuum, a pencil sharpener and a fan.

The Fix-It Shop

Our fix-it shop opened today when we tried to figure out if we could make an old radio/tape player work. We borrowed batteries from the 3/4 grade and managed to fix our radio. We haven't figured out how to make the tape player work yet, but we'll keep trying. We've had several donations of things to fix or take apart, so there's lots of fun ahead!

Math

Our last math unit finished up before the break. We played lots of games that are introducing children to beginning concepts of addition and subtraction. With One More, One Fewer children add or subtract one from a given number. In Build It, Change It they draw a card, place their pennies on their ten-frame, then draw another card and change the number of pennies to reflect their new card. With combinations of ten, children toss ten red/yellow counters and count how many red and how many yellow land up. We made a chart based on all the combinations they turn up, something we are studying more carefully under the Common Core standards. We have been telling story problems with a focus on helping children learn to retell the problem. This helps them fix the numbers in their mind that they are dealing with, and then think through whether this is an action of putting groups together or taking a group away. This work lays the foundation for another unit in April-May. We also flashed quick images up on a screen and asked kids to reproduce them. They made their own images too, which will be used to decompose the numbers in our next unit on numbers. We have also been comparing the weights of different objects.

Language Arts

We have been cheering words on our word wall with pom-pons everyone made. We chant the spelling of the words, then write them, taking the opportunity to learn how to spell these words and practice our handwriting skills. We also are using Elkonin boards to count the number of sounds (or phonemes) that we hear in words.  We are using word chains where we write a word, change one letter in it and make a new word. This progresses through a chain of ten words. Children are using alphabet arcs to match letters and alphabet pockets to figure out the beginning sound in words. We have worked on rhyming books, both matching pictures to figure out the rhymes and generating our own rhymes that we will make into a classroom book. We also made Valentine's Day cards for our buddies and friends. We had a fun party near the end of a very busy day on February 14th!

The Gruffalo

We read The Gruffalo in early February and talked about the story. A week later we watched the video of the story. We then drew up a chart of the similarities and differences between the book and the DVD. When we saw the play, we added a third layer to our chart, comparing the actual play to the two more familiar media. The children enjoyed the play very much. The cast was good at engaging the audience with participation and questions and answers at the end.