Sea Star Math

For math we began making a Sea Star class quilt.  We started by noticing different mathematical patterns that we can find in quilts.

Andrew noticed that the blue sections of this quilt look like a five-dot domino (you might need to squint your eyes and focus on the turquoise parts).

We also read a poem about sea stars and learned cool facts about them.  We learned that sea stars regenerate their arms, they aren't like fish because they don't have brains or backbones, and that when they eat, their stomach comes out of their body!  We found a youtube video to prove this last fact:

Next, we each created a Sea Star quilt block.

Then we decorated a piece of paper with dot painters.  These will be the design papers from which we'll cut our sea stars.

Sea Stars will be a perfect way to notice counting by 5s patterns!

Five...

Ten...

Fifteen...

Stay tuned to see what you notice about our sea star quilt!

What are you thinking about sea stars?

100th Day

Room 408 has been counting the days of school every day this year, and we were so excited to finally reach 100 days!  Of course, we had to have a special celebration.

Sophia made a special PJ Day invitation so we wouldn't forget!

We had a special 100 day page where we could track special challenges that had to do with the number 100:

Such as seeing if we could fit 100 drops of water on a penny or in a lid...

Or being silent for 100 seconds...

We even read a special book called Wolf's Chicken Stew.  

In this book, the wolf wanted to fatten the chicken up so he could make Chicken Stew.  He left 100 doughnuts and 100 pancakes on Mrs. Chicken's doorstep.  He even left a 100 pound cake!  He got a surprise when he went to collect his dinner, though.  You'll have to read the book to find out!

On our 100th day we found a basket of 100 cookies outside our door with a suspicious note...

We had lots of questions, such as:

Who left us the cookies?  

Are there really 100 cookies?

Is the Wolf really going to visit our classroom?

How many cookies will we each get?

We grouped and counted the cookies by tens and then divided them up equally.  We even had to split some cookies into fractional parts, but everyone got a fair share.

We had a great 100th Day!

Watch our video to join in on the 100th day fun!

What was your favorite 100th day activity? 

Retelling Favorites

For the past few weeks we have been thinking about retelling stories.  We have been thinking about characters, making connections with the book and with characters, noticing how characters change throughout a story, and telling the main events.

We met with reading partners and practiced retelling the beginning, middle, and end of the stories we are reading.

Night of the Veggie Monster

Lego City books

We shared some of our retellings from favorite books....

Those Shoes

One Foot, Now the Other

What are some of your favorite books to retell and recommend to others?

It's Time...

For the past few weeks Room 408 has been playing with the little animals that they found in our storage room.  They have been creating zoos, building animal families, and playing with them during our morning choice time.

I came back after dropping the kids off at specials and noticed that someone had matched up the baboon with one of our nonfiction books:

I guess it's time to start our animal inquiry!

Going Public

This month we wrapped up our in-depth space systems inquiry by "Going Public."  We shared our research with others, in order to teach them what we learned.

A few weeks ago, we thought about who we thought our audience might be...Who do we think needs to know about our important space research?  Room 408 made lists of people we wanted to invite and teach.

Next, we thought about what kinds of visual aides would help us teach others what we learned.  Then we got to work collecting "Big Ideas," painting posters, printing pictures, and creating!

We practiced by inviting Mrs. Oss' 4K class up for a "Gallery Walk."

Look what they noticed!

Finally, we were ready for the real thing!  Each research group presented two times last week.

Planets Research Group

Captive Audience

Sun Research Group

After presentations, the audience posted their learning and wonders.

Space Exploration Research Group

Moon Research Group

More new learning!

Stars/Space Junk Research Group

Soon I'll have the presentation videos ready to post.  They were so proud and excited to share their research.

Great work, Room 408!

Publishing: Hard Work of Authors in Room 408

In Writing Workshop each student in Room 408 chose one of their favorite pieces to "stick with" for a while, in order to make them even better and get them ready for publishing.  We had to reread our pieces over and over and over to make sure they sounded right after we changed parts and added parts using flaps.  We also realized how helpful it is to have writing partnerships!

Publishing is hard work, but it's worth it!