In math we have been doing a mini-inquiry with twin pops.
Twin pops can help our brains grow! We made a chart to study counting by 2s.
We added The Popsicle Chant to our Poetry Notebooks.
We noticed counting by 2s patterns on a 100 grid and recorded it in our Think Books.
We also graphed the most popular popsicle flavors and solved the challenging math problem: If we each ate a twin pop and put our sticks in a bucket, how many sticks would we have altogether? We added an entry in our Think Books to help us solve the problem.
Of course, we had to eat popsicles to find the answer!!!
We have been learning about the life of the researcher, Jane Goodall.
We started learning about Jane by reading a book about when she was little. She always loved animals and was very patient and determined when she observed them.
We learned that when Jane was little she had a stuffed toy chimpanzee named Jubilee.
We began to wonder about Jane. These were some of the questions we had:
We also read the book The Watcher, which told us more about how Jane accomplished her dream to work and study with chimpanzees in Gombe, Africa. We also were able to answer some of our questions!
Jane was not only a researcher, but also a writer. She kept piles and piles of research in her tent when she was working with the chimpanzees.
We learned that one of her favorite chimp companions was named David Greybeard.
However, after many years Jane realized that the chimpanzees she loved were in danger of becoming extinct. She realized that the best way to help the chimpanzees was to share their story with the world.
Jane Goodall is an excellent example of the 3 A's: Activism, Awareness, and Aid. When we do our inquiries this year, Room 408 will keep these 3 A's in mind.
This is a National Geographic video that we watched before writing entries about Jane in our Think Books.
We have been working on building our reading stamina. We read the book Marathon Mouse by Amy Dixon.
Preston was a mouse who wanted to run the New York City marathon but no one thought he could do it. We googled the NYC marathon so we could see how challenging it would be for a mouse.
Would you like to be a mouse running amid a sea of sneakers?
He worked hard, practiced, and got stronger as a runner. He finally completed his marathon!
Room 408 talked about how we can build our reading stamina just like Preston built his running stamina. We set goals for ourselves and stacked our books on one side of our folder, and as we finished a book we placed it on the other side and became marathon readers!
In Reading Workshop we have been talking about being strong readers.
Strong readers do things like find a private spot to focus, warm up their brains by reading the title and taking a sneak peek of the book, and read as many words in books as we can.
We read Goldilocks and the Three Bears.
We noticed how Goldilocks found things were too hard, too soft, or juuuust right. We can notice how books feel when we read them...are they too hard? too easy? or juuuust right?
We tried this out with books in our classroom, really noticing how it felt when we read them, and sorted them into three piles after we tried them to see how they felt.
Other analogies we made for how we know when a book feels just right is like how it feels when riding a bike:
and how it feels for a baby learning to walk. We read this book by Marla Frazee:
We came up with this list for how it feels to read a book that is just right:
--you know most of the words
--you can still think about the story
--if you get to a tricky part, you can probably figure it out
We have been brainstorming rules for how we want it to be when we learn, work, and play together in Room 408. We talked about how we will do our best to stay on track. I told Room 408 how we are like trains.
In fact, we are all like trains running on a track.
Sometimes, we make a mistake and our train runs off the track.
My job is to help get your behavior train back on track and running smoothly again.
There are three ways that I will help get your behavior train back on track.
One way is...
We can break feelings, creations, or have accidents...but the great thing is, we can fix it!
The second way I will help get behavior back on track is...
If you can't be safe with something or take care of something, I wouldn't be doing my job if I let you keep doing it! For example, if you were walking across the top of the monkey bars you might need to simply stay away from the monkey bars until you are ready to show me you can be safe.
The last way I'll help keep you on track is...
Sometimes we all just need a little time to get ourselves under control. Take your break, take some quick calming breaths and come back ready to learn.
We all got to practice taking a break in our "Take a Break" spots. While we practiced, we watched a calming music youtube video.
We also talked about how we have different states of our brain.
We all want to be in the Executive State, which is when we are making good choices and have good self-control. It's like when you're driving your Brain Car.
Sometimes, we get into our Emotional State. This is when we might be mean to others, cry, or say hurtful things. It's like you're in the backseat of your Brain Car--not in control!
We also might get into our Survival State. We might hit, scream, or hurt others when we are in this state. It's like when we are in the trunk of our Brain Car--definitely not showing self-control!
When we are in our Emotional State or our Survival State, we can use the Safe Zone in our classroom. This is a quite place to go when we might need a little longer to gain self-control. As a class we talked about how this happens to all of us...even adults! We watched this video to help us learn how to calm.
Soon we'll be making our own calming Glitter Jars to take home. Here is a link explaining it.
