New Centers

Christmas Amazon money is the best! With mine, I purchased some new centers for our classroom. Yes, technology is great but, my students desperately need to learn to communicate with one another and work to solve problems especially when they disagree. Playing IPad games doesn't give that opportunity. Here's one of our new centers called Cadoo and oh my, do the kids love this game! I also purchased Cranium which they have also enjoyed. I was excited to see that even with iPads and computers in the room, students DO want opportunities to play games with their peers and not be isolated playing an IPad during center time.

Researching Writing Topics

This week we are diving into the Organization Trait for the Writing Curriculum 6 Traits of Writing. Here, we are learning how to create a strong lead for our writing. Students' prompt is "The Most Fascinating Creature of All". Students broke up into groups and chose a mythological creature (Bigfoot, the Loch Ness Monster, the Yeti, the Kongamato, or the Mokele-Membembe) and researched information on their topic. Throughout next week students will be developing their writing beyond their opening leading sentence. Students will be presenting their writing with the mindset of persuading others to consider these creatures to be real or to be just a myth. 

Vocabulary Study

This past week we finished The Velveteen Rabbit! During the reading, we kept a running record of vocabulary words that were new and featured in these photos students are creating a vocabulary poster showing one of their vocabulary words chosen for them. Creating a kind of word map for the book. These posters will be displayed in our hallway.