Surprise Visitors!

James' family added 15 baby chicks to their brood.....unexpectedly!  Mama hen cleverly hid her eggs in the yard so they would not be taken in the daily collection.  The hen was discovered sitting in the middle of the yard with 15 little ones.  James' family brought them inside to keep them warm.  Mrs. Penhallow brought several of the chicks to school so the children could observe and touch them.  The children were very gentle and the chicks didn't seem to mind being held by so many hands!  We will be hatching our own chicks this spring.  Some of the eggs will come from the Penhallow's.  Thank you,  Mrs. Penhallow for sharing this experience with us.

....And More Water Discoveries!

We continue with our observations of water.  Our latest experiment had to do with surface area.  Students discovered that  the more surface area that was exposed, the more evaporation occurred.  Students measured 25ml of water and placed it in four different containers.  At the end of the week they noticed that the graduated cylinder had not lost much water but the flat lid had no water left in it.  The children recorded their results in their science logs.

Jack-O-Lantern Jubilee!

We had more math fun today at our Jack-o-lantern Jubilee!!  The children practiced estimating, measuring, weighing and counting skills.  We set up 5 stations for the students to rotate into to discover the weight, circumference and number of seeds of 5 different pumpkins.  After we estimated weight, circumference, and number of seeds, we compared the actual numbers for each pumpkin.  We opened up our pumpkins to count the seeds.  We discovered that our middle pumpkin had the most seeds of all.  It had over 600 seeds. That pumpkin only weighed 5 pounds!  Our 19 pound pumpkin did not have nearly as many as the 5 pounder.  A big thank you to our helpers: Mrs. Penhallow, Mrs. Babbitt, Mrs. Geer and Miss Parnigoni. We carved our jack-o-lanterns and donated them to the Pumpkin Glow. 
     We also used pumpkins to make pumpkin globes in another activity.  We have been learning about the 7 continents and other parts of the globe.  We placed the 7 continents and 4 oceans on the globe with the equator and the prime meridian.  

M & M Math----Mmm, Mmm Good Lesson!!

We had an interesting math lesson using a small bags of M & M's.  The children sorted them into sets by color, added and subtracted M & M's, and compared their sets using greater than, less than and equal to.  The children practiced estimation and place value using the candies.  We also practiced graphing by making a bar graph to show how many of each color we had in our packets.  The children also made a pie graph to show fractions of each color they had.  After we practiced all of these math skills, we got to eat the M & M's.  I'm sure the children would agree that eating them was the best part of the activity!! 

Using Alliteration in Our Writing

The children learned how to use alliteration in their writing.  Alliteration is the repetition of the same beginning sound in a sentence. (ex.  Peter Piper picked a peck of pickled peppers)  We had some fun with this activity by writing alliteration sentences for "b" words about bats.  Then we made bats to display our sentences.  We also did another alliteration activity using "s" words about skeletons.  We created silly skeletons with q-tips to display our silly sentences.

Learning About Nouns

Miss Parnigoni developed a Smartboard lesson on nouns.  The children had lots of fun with the games she created to identify nouns.  Her interactive lesson allowed for great class participation.