Beginning Australia

Please send your child's favorite Dr. Seuss book on Wednesday with them to school!!!!!

We will be reading with our buddies...

G'Day Mates! We are off to explore the land down under...

So far the students have been tickled silly with their Australian animal assignments. We begin the research on them next week. Unlike the last theme, we will do the research and writing in class only. The students and parents will only be assigned stuffing their animals with newspaper at home and adding a few embellishments to the painted animal they bring home in 10 days.

We began Australia with facts about kangaroos. There are more kangaroos than humans in Australia, they are marsupials and that means they have their babies in the pouch, they have a heavy tail that helps with support and can leap at least 40 feet. We made kangaroos and they chose their own three facts to write on their kangaroo.

With all the students we shared a picture of their assigned animal on the internet. The frill necked lizard runs in such a funny way. If you need a good laugh, go to that:)

We began teaching about the aborigines in Social studies and science. Ask your student about the aborigines. We made an aboriginal flag too.
This study of these original natives to Australia will continue. We already know how sacred they think the land is. We learned about Dream time where all their knowledge comes from.



Our helpers this week took down our Famous American dolls and bagged them up. They outlined the Australian animals and a parent came to celebrate a "certain" Ella's birthday with a lunch in the cafeteria. There is no way these babies are turning 7 years old!! Hard to believe:) Our volunteers always read to the students. It's like hosting a celebrity reader and very exciting indeed!

Math has been great this week. The students really seem to like and understand place value. If we ask what number a 4 in the tens place is, they can tell us. When they are asked to show a number like 345 on the place value mat with place value blocks they can do that with ease too!

We will always have reviews of place value. Moving on to time. Do you have an analog clock at home for them to look at while they are learning?

In Science we talked about The Great Barrier Reef in Australia. Coral can be a mineral and an animal of the sea. The old skeleton is the limestone mineral and the new polyps growing on the old skeleton coral make it live and grow. We made coral as our experiment. When your student comes to school on Monday they will be so surprised at the coral that has grown.
I came up over the weekend twice to add more solution ( salt, bluing and water). I have the experiment if anyone would like to try it.

Spelling sentences in the packets are getting so much better. I just knew these students could stretch themselves and make some super sentences. Yippee!!! In Integrated Language we have marched on to an understanding of "quotation marks." When we recognize them in stories we should use inflection in our voices. In several groups we worked with the sounds ee and ea.

I wanted to include a group shot at the end of this blog of the Hooray for the USA program and thanks to Sam's parents I have one. If you'd like a copy let me know, I'll send it to Walgreens to be printed and send home with your child. I am not able to import it. We are having issues with the server and that is where I've stored the picture.

Spelling words this week are:

pick, pack, tack, back, sack, sick, chick, clock, snack, truck

Challenge Words: Australia---Aborigine--continent--outback

Please don't fear the challenge words. We will be working on them in class too!!!

A recommended way to study these ending sounds is in groups. Study all the "ack" words; the "ick" words etc.....

We have an Australian Dance for you all coming up. I will send more on that later.

Monday, February 28th we are going on a field trip until 11:30. We are going to see Duck for President at the Coteria.

Thank you for your sweet children.

Kathleen Wiedeman