Alone in the Wilderness

Our current read aloud book is Little House on the Prairie.

We just finished the part where Pa builds the log cabin, and they noticed how it was a lot like Lincoln Logs.


I shared the story of Dick Proenneke's life, and how he had a dream of living off the land in the Alaskan wilderness.  He built his cabin from scratch using nothing but hand tools, just like Pa!


As we watched the DVD, we found out that he was a writer (he kept a journal of his adventures) and a mathematician (he used lots of measuring tools to build his cabin).
Here are some highlights of the DVD:

 To learn more about Dick Proenneke, click here and here.

We pulled out our class Lincoln Logs and tried our hand at building.

What did you like about the Dick Proenneke DVD?

100 Days Have Come and Gone...

Today was our 100th day of school!  Here is a video of our 100th day activities:

We read the book Wolf's Chicken Stew by Keiko Kasza.  The wolf wants to make chicken stew and each day he leaves 100 treats on the chicken's front porch in order to fatten her up.  However, he finds out that he has been feeding 100 hungry chicks all week!  The book ends with the wolf baking 100 scrumptious cookies for them...

We found a special gift left on the doorstep of Room 408...

...along with a note!

At first we didn't believe that there were really 100 cookies...we decided to group them in fives and figured out that we would need 20 plates.

We ended up with 4 extra plates, so we delivered them to the office and the specials teachers.

On a different note, our gecko is getting extra active!

What does the number 100 mean to you?

Adoptions

 Room 408's classroom family is growing!  We have now adopted a gecko, some fish, snails, and shrimp for our research:

Our gecko has been in hiding.  It causes quite a stir when he moves a leg.

Our fish tank holds some small fish, two snails, and some shrimp.

Upon first observing the shrimp I heard, "Cool! You can see his brain!"

Can you see the see-through shrimp at the base of the green plant?

Our betta is beautiful, although his water needs to be changed already!

The students have been making observations all day in our pet research journals.

Here are some of their observations:

What do you think we should name our pets?

Atlantic City Adventure

Today we read a book about the high-diving horses in Atlantic City in the 1930s. It is a story of a girl who accompanied her father one summer to Atlantic City.  After she visited the boardwalk and saw a girl on the high-diving horse, she dreamed of doing it herself one day.

 It is a great example of writer's craft.  We noticed how the author slowed down the most exciting moments in the book.


We also liked how the author used "horse" words to write, like "Summertime gallops by" and "heart pounding like hooves."


They were fascinated by the idea of a high-diving horse and amazed to find out that high-diving horses and riders really existed.


Here is actual video footage of the stunt:


Would you high-dive on a horse's back if you got the chance?

The Word of the Day is...Collaboration

Room 408 worked on our collaboration skills today.  We worked on our January Learning Mural, where we represent different things we remember learning in the month of January.  We discussed the things we do when we collaborate, and how collaboration helps us all learn more.

We collaborate when we share jobs and split the work equally.  The group representing The Little House in the Big Woods wanted to represent when we learned about the pig's bladder.  They split the balloon into three parts to share the work equally:

Room 408 is also really into data and measuring.  They created a math station to collect data about measuring.  Yesterday it was Flea Jumps and recording data about how many inches high we could jump.  

Today many students created their own round of calisthenics for data collection.  Makenna had me touching my toes and measuring a sit-and-reach style task.  Brianna was timing how long students could hold various positions such as the following:

It all just made me smile (and giggle a little, inside).

Wild & Wonderful

We have been studying the author Steve Jenkins and marveling at his collage artwork as he shares cool animal information.  He is the perfect complement to our animal inquiry.  His books fill us with wonder and get us asking lots of questions!

We read his book Actual Size.

All the animal creations in the book are displayed at actual size so we can imagine the actual size of various animals.

Maddy found out that her arm is about the same size as the saltwater crocodile's snout!






We have also been writing stories from our lives in Writer's Workshop and meeting with our partners to share our writing.

We also read Steve Jenkins' book called Biggest, Strongest, Fastest.

We learned so many cool facts.  One of the most amazing was that the sun jellyfish is the longest animal in the world, with tentacles over 200 feet long.  We will be trying to measure this out tomorrow.  

The kids were amazed by the highest jumper (for its size):  the flea.  If Mrs. Henning was a flea, she could jump to the top of a 65-story building!  This information led the kids to create a new math station...Flea Jumping.  Hmmm...I think we will be starting our measurement unit, soon.

You can hear the excitement in these researcher's voices as they describe some of their findings!

Our Own Starry Nights

Our Van Gogh-inspired Starry Night pictures are finally posted! Enjoy!


If you want a link to view some of Van Gogh's other paintings, click here!

The Van Gogh gallery link is here.

Animal Questions

River shared his cute new puppy this morning. 

We even measured him!

Today we also  began narrowing down our wonders and beginning to figure out what animal will be our research focus for the next few weeks.  After studying our plastic models and photographs of animals, we opened a "Today's Meet" room to post some of our lingering questions. (I'm not sure why the times are off, but we did it around 11:00am.)

Soon we will be forming our inquiry groups!

Room408animals

How meeny rows of teeth dos a grat wit shark have? 06:34PM Mon, 03 February 2014 GMT by Alex

How long is a sting ray? 06:35PM Mon, 03 February 2014 GMT by Alex

Haw. Maney. Teth. Harx. Hav 06:36PM Mon, 03 February 2014 GMT by Ryan

Dose's a lisert eat fly's 06:37PM Mon, 03 February 2014 GMT by Maddy

How far can a cheeta run? 06:37PM Mon, 03 February 2014 GMT by Alex

Doz the arctic fox eat the sam thing as an rom 06:37PM Mon, 03 February 2014 GMT by Jacob

How log can a owl be? 06:37PM Mon, 03 February 2014 GMT by Brianna

How long is a king kobrue 06:37PM Mon, 03 February 2014 GMT by River

How meny Gavial are they? 06:38PM Mon, 03 February 2014 GMT by Erik

What sound does a zebra make? 06:38PM Mon, 03 February 2014 GMT by Mrs. Henning

What dose a koala eat? 06:39PM Mon, 03 February 2014 GMT by Makenna

I. Like. Lazrzs 06:39PM Mon, 03 February 2014 GMT by Ryan

Das a hawk eat fish 06:39PM Mon, 03 February 2014 GMT by Logan k

Is a snak lik a wom [worm] 06:39PM Mon, 03 February 2014 GMT by Blake

How sarp ar barracuda teeth 06:39PM Mon, 03 February 2014 GMT by Logan s

Does a zebra have black stripes or white stripes? 06:39PM Mon, 03 February 2014 GMT by Mrs. Henning

Why do zebras have stripes? 06:40PM Mon, 03 February 2014 GMT by Mrs. Henning

Is a zebra a kind of horse? 06:40PM Mon, 03 February 2014 GMT by Mrs. Henning

what does a zebra eat? 06:41PM Mon, 03 February 2014 GMT by Mrs. Henning

black 06:41PM Mon, 03 February 2014 GMT by Logan k

Do cats yoos sand or gravel for liter 06:41PM Mon, 03 February 2014 GMT by River

How fast can a gorilla go? 06:41PM Mon, 03 February 2014 GMT by Brianna

haw big can a arctic fox get 06:41PM Mon, 03 February 2014 GMT by Jacob

Do pokipns [porcupines] dig? 06:42PM Mon, 03 February 2014 GMT by Erik

What do pairie dogs eat? 06:43PM Mon, 03 February 2014 GMT by Makenna

Wot doz a lion eat 06:43PM Mon, 03 February 2014 GMT by Jacob

Cats. Yoos. Sand 06:43PM Mon, 03 February 2014 GMT by Ryan

Shrly it's the cheda. 06:43PM Mon, 03 February 2014 GMT by River

R wels [whales] the bigest 06:44PM Mon, 03 February 2014 GMT by Blake

Mete 06:44PM Mon, 03 February 2014 GMT by River

Dose a tree frog clim? 06:44PM Mon, 03 February 2014 GMT by Maddy

I. Love. Cats 06:45PM Mon, 03 February 2014 GMT by Ryan