Field Trip to Pilgrim Hall Museum

Hi Families!
I just wanted to let you know that because this is a walking field trip, I am able to have more than just one or two chaperones. If you are up to date with the CORI and are interested in joining us, please send me an email to let me know. So far the weather looks nice for next Wednesday, but we know how quickly that can change! Keep your fingers crossed!

Insects!

The past two weeks we spent some time learning about insects! The students loved this unit and were so eager to learn interesting facts about each one that we had studied. We were also so very lucky to have Mrs. Riley help us with a big mural for outside of our classroom! She made the background for our insect display. We will keep this up as we move into studying about the rainforest! Thank you Mrs. Riley! Here are some pictures of our insect learning the past couple of weeks.

Thank you Mrs. Riley!

Tomorrow!

We are SO very excited for tomorrow! We are getting a visit from an amazing author of a teacher's book. She is going to come to our very own classroom to teach a lesson! We are having several other visitors from around the district to observe Kathy teaching our class. Kathy Collins wrote two books for teachers that helps to guide them in Reading Workshop and each book has units of study for teaching Reading. One of these books I have already read and follow in my classroom with the students. Please make sure the children get a great night of sleep and are ready to show all that they have learned about Reading Workshop tomorrow! Thank you!

Reader's Workshop

Here is just a little update on what we are working on in Reader's Workshop! We continue to work hard in our unit on deepening our comprehension around the characters in our fictional books. The students are learning to pay attention to what the character says, to make inferences about the characters, to notice strong feelings and when those feelings change, and now to think like directors! We are working hard to read several books about specific characters and then joining with partners that are also reading about those characters to discuss and reenact parts from the books, trying to speak and act like the characters would. One partner is the actor and one is the director, working together to discuss and share thoughts about how the character might act/sound/feel in certain parts. The students are really loving this time! Ask your child which characters they are reading about in Reader's Workshop! We are also taking some time to really learn about what it means to infer while reading. We recently read a poem together and stopped at different points to make inferences about what happened. Here are a few pictures of the poem and the children working hard with their clipboards and thinksheets to do some inferring. They did a great job!

Happy Mother's Day!

I hope all of the moms had a wonderful day yesterday! I hope you enjoyed your jar of memories. The kids put a lot of effort into thinking about what makes their mom special and they worked very hard on them. :)

Planetarium

Today we had a blast learning about the night sky! We read a few books about the stars prior to our field trip so they had a great deal of schema about the topic already. Here are a few pictures as well as a challenge! (I tried to get more in the planetarium but it was next to impossible with the lighting.)

Challenge! Please email me the answers that your child says (don't worry about spelling) and if they are able to answer 2/3 correct they will get a little prize. Thank you!

1.  Which color stars are the hottest?

2. What is the name of the red star on Orion the Hunter's shoulder?

3. Which season will we be able to see Orion the Hunter in our night sky?

Weather!

Last week we spent a lot of time reading and learning about weather! The students really enjoyed this unit. Some of our learning included tornados, rain, wind, clouds and the water cycle! Here are a few pictures of some anchor charts and activities.