Literacy Fun Fest

Today was our Literacy Fun Fest.  We dressed up as our favorite book characters.  I dressed up as Mrs. Wishy-Washy, as Room 408 has really been enjoying Mrs. Wishy-Washy books. lately.

All LEADS students got together to enjoy the book, The Little Old Lady Who Was Not Afraid of Anything.

 

We also joined Mrs. Zoll's class and sang a song for the assisted living home across the street from our school.

After lunch we had fun at Spooky Stations.

Watch the video below to see our book character costumes and all the fun we had!

Pattern Block Collection

All of October we have been collecting pattern blocks for our monthly collection.
At the end of the month, we made estimates of how many blocks we had collected for the whole month.
We sorted them and organized them into groups of ten.

Then we moved blocks to make complete groups of ten, which were easier to count.

We figured out that we collected 59 blocks in the month of October!

Owl Inquiry Day!

When Kaydence's family heard that we had lots of questions about owl pellets when we had finished the read aloud chapter book, Poppy (see linked blog post here), they offered to get some real owl pellets for us to investigate!

I decided to turn it into a big inquiry day on owls.  Room 408 loves Research Workshop! We started by brainstorming lingering questions we had about owls:

We reviewed all our sources and started our research by studying photos, reading books, or researching on our ipads on PebbleGo and Raz Kids Reading.

After lunch, we got to explore an owl skull in our Discovery area and weighed owl pellets on a balance.

Of course, we always recorded our new learning!

We reviewed all our facts quietly at our tables and gathered together to share some of our cool facts.

We recorded the learning during our sharing using a padlet (to see all facts you may have to scroll to the right).

Finally, the time came that we have all been waiting for:  dissecting owl pellets! We found it morbidly fascinating.

We found lots of cool bones inside, along with a *lot* of fur.

When we found a bone, we used a diagram to help us identify what kind of bone it was and what kind of animal it came from:

Eliza found a hip bone!

We found some pretty interesting stuff!

Kaydence found a caterpillar larva or cocoon.

Morgan found a jaw bone with teeth still in it.

Here is a video of our Owl Inquiry Day!


Thank you for encouraging inquiry, Kaydence & family!

Wonder Window

We have now studied three researchers, and we want to be just like them!

We have been studying Albert Einstein (and have of course noticed his hair):

We read a few books about Einstein and his life growing up.  

We learned that he studied light, sound, and space...just like we will this year!  He is a reader, a writer, a mathematician, a scientist, and a researcher, but most of all--a thinker.  

When we read On a Beam of Light we learned that he was very unique.  He didn't speak until he was almost four, and started wondering about our world when his father gave him a compass.  He asked LOTS and LOTS of questions--so many that his teachers thought he was trouble.  ;)

He is a perfect person to study for LEADS because he is so full of questions.

Here is a short video so you can see him in action:

One of our notebooks is designated as our "Think Book" and his picture is on the front.  

Today we wondered about our world and wrote down our wonders on sticky notes.

Once we completed a wonder, we posted it on our Wonder Window.

 

We have so many wonders!

Eventually we will use our Genius Hour to try and answer some of these great questions!

What are you wondering about our world?

Alligator Greater

We have been comparing numbers using the greater than and less than signs.  This is a fun song we heard in class to help us remember which way the sign goes.



A few kids said their parents told them about this tip while they were working on last night's homework! Perfect timing!

Number Detectives

We enjoyed playing the Number Rack Detective game with partners today.
We were given a number to make using one or two strings on our number racks, and kept it hidden from our partner.

Next, the Detective partner listened to the Clue Giver partner give a clue about how many s/he moved on one of the strings.  The Detective had to then figure out how many beads were on the other string.

We're getting to be stronger mathematicians every day!

Blue Whales and Short i

Our focus for spelling this week is the short i sound, like in the word wall word 'will'.  We each made and colored a copy of the shape book, "How Big Is a Blue Whale?"

The little mini book is full of great whale facts and lots of short i words.

We had fun hunting for the short i words in the mini-book.  It comes from the Scholastic teacher resource book called, Mini-Book of the Week by Maria Fleming.

It was a fun word work lesson...

Plus, we looked up some videos about blue whales and learned even more!