The Land Down Under

The highlight of the week was definitely the visit to the 3rd grade Rainforest!  We have several first graders who have siblings in third grade and they have watched the Rain Forest Animals take form, but for most of us this was our first time to see this year's Rainforest and the animals created by families of third graders.  It is amazing!  If you are in the building you really must come and see the second floor transformation.  There is so much work the third graders do to prepare and learn about the Rain Forest.  It is cross curricular. 

Anna giving a tour to Thomas

Freddie and Erin

Tatum and Lena realized they both researched the same Australian animal

Matthew and Charlie

Addison and Mallory

Jake giving a tour to Sawyer

Some days are just like this!!!

Tree frog

Sloth

A Marsupial

Ellie getting a tour from Charlotte

Find the ant

Cuscus

We introduced Australia---The Land Down Under.  We talked about the 7 continents and introduced the continent of Australia.  We learned about the Aborigines and their connection with the earth and water.  We talked about the word, "sacred."    Aborigines considered many things of the earth sacred.  Our USA journals now have a new section.  It's the Australia section of the journal.  I t will come home at the end of the year.

During TNT we made kangaroos.  The students will bring them home after the International Festival. 

 

  In Math this week we learned about telling time in quarter hours.  OF course we will continue to review understanding the clock divided in to 4 sections, 15 minutes each.  So, far, they have impressed us with their knowledge and retention.  They seem to have mastered telling time on the hour and half hour.  We decided to extend this further.  Meanwhile we go back to coins and counting money.  One day for 10 minutes we played around the world with math facts.  One students said, "I knew that because I do math facts on the way to school in the car and this morning that was one of the problems."  I love it.  

Introducing Fractions!   We have introduced 1/2; 1/4!!!!

In Integrated Language Mrs. Wiedeman read Yellowstone National Parks with one group.  Being the first National Park is a pretty fun fact to know!  Sawyer's mom has a passport to the National Parks.  Sawyer brought it in and showed all the stamps in it and the pictures.  Pretty cool!  I didn't know that existed.   She had been to Mount Rushmore 6 times.   "Geyser"  that was  new word for us.  A natural wonder for sure.

Ulysses S. Grant probably should have been a Famous American we studied because he signed a bill protecting Yellowstone and calling it a National Park. 

Another group started their newspapers called the Dumpty Town News.  We had not been able to get to this after reading about Little Lumpty and his fall from the wall.  He did survive and we need to let the people of the town of Dumpty know this.

Harry's House was a favorite of yet another group who then followed up with talk about steps to completing a projrct.  We are going to compile a nice list of steps to follow in completing a project.  We will send that home for you to see.  Our independent centers ranged from Slugs in Love to Ipad with spelling words from the year to writing a letter to the president.  We are continuing to focus on Long I words now.  

Long I , Long I 

I have an idea!

I can ride my bike and fly a kite.  

I can light the fire in the moonlight.

I can bake a pie and cut it into a slice.  

Can you give me a high five?

Spelling words for the week:

pick

pack

tack

back

sack

sick

chick

snack

truck

duck

Challenge Words:

Australia

Aborigine

continent

outback

Surprise the Teacher word is their Australian animal

David Nieves, The Reptile Man came to visit!!!