How Many Feet?

We have been working on making estimates and then checking our estimates.  In Math Workshop, we read the book How Big is a Foot?

The story was about a King who has a special bed made for his Queen's birthday.  The King measured out how tall and wide he needed the bed by using his feet.  By the time the carpenter's tiny apprentice made the bed, measuring with his tiny feet, the bed did not fit the Queen!

We made estimates about how many "teacher feet" long a jump rope was.  Then we got our actual measurement:  it was 17 teacher steps long.  Then we estimated and measured with different student feet.  Some were quite different!

Then each student got to estimate and measure how many of their steps long the jump rope was.

We got pretty good at estimating!

Doubles, Doubles

For a few days we have been learning and discussing doubles facts.  We searched for patterns on these doubles ten frames:

We also read the Chinese folktale called Two of Everything.

It is the story of finding a magic pot that doubles whatever is put into it.  However, the doubles lead them to troubles!

We practiced our doubles facts by singing along with this video:

Which is your favorite doubles fact?

Personal Word Walls

Today we learned about Personal Word Walls.

Each child in Room 408 has a Personal Word Wall and the words that s/he can read and spell in a "snap" are highlighted.

Each week the student chooses a word to work on that is not highlighted.  She makes the word in a variety of ways in hopes of learning the word so she can access it in a "snap" when she is reading or writing.

Today was our first day exploring our Personal Word Walls.

I think it was a success!

Thank You, Veterans!

Josiah's dad came in to talk with us about Veterans Day.

He served our country for three years.

We had a lot of fun learning about life in the army and he answered lots of our questions!

Attention! 

At ease!

 He brought in pictures....

Shared about the different symbols on his uniform.....

He even shared a video of what it was like to jump out of a helicopter!

 We learned about how we can remember our soldiers.

We also learned about getting "coined."

We got a taste of what it is like to be in the army if you make a little mistake...

We did lots of push-ups and squats!

 We really enjoyed learning from our own personal Veteran!

Josiah's family must be so proud!

 Here is a video of the highlights.

Have you ever heard of a Rambutan?

Claire brought in a strange fruit that none of us had seen before...a Rambutan!

We decided to put our scientist skills to the test and use all of our senses to observe the rambutans.

Of course, we also needed to draw a diagram and record our observations in our Think Books!

After we made our observations of the outside, we cut open the inside.  We were surprised at how it looked!

We even ate them...it was dripping with juice, and most kids said it tasted like a grape.

Thanks for the fun experience, Claire!

Learning Mural Day!

It's the first day of November, which means it's time to reflect on our learning from October.
We brainstormed the ways we got smarter in October.

Then we got to work, collaborating to represent our learning.

The finished October mural!