Veteran's Day Respect

Lining the halls to welcome the veteran's visiting our school

Friday was a day to honor our local veterans who visited the school for a breakfast, songs, and a parade through the halls with all the students waving flags, giving high fives, and cheering. We read    Veterans - Heroes in our Neighborhood with wonderful illustrations depicting each veteran back when they served in the armed forces contrasted with their current occupations.   Thank you to the men and women who served!                                                
                                                       
Guess what made an appearance in math accompanied by great excitement? Calculators! The kids had a terrific time learning to solve problems using the calculators and learning how to skip count by 2s or  5's with just a touch of a few buttons. 

Our poster

Here we are with these little gems

After watching a Science video clip about career kid Erik, who designs video games and uses light and sound to communicate information in the video game, we chose video game themes and designed some of our own. The kids were very excited to create obstacles, bonuses, add stickers representing light or sound, and plan a story to help their character to the goal. It was equally exciting to then share their games and directions with friends.

Getting started designing and planning

Choosing characters and destinations

Cutting out game pictures

Drawing back grounds

Creative ideas 

Telling each other our video game stories

Listen to mine!

"So first you go along here..."

Our completed designs!

During writing this week we have been focusing on personal narrative/small moments and wrote a seasonal story about a fun fall activity including an introduction, details, and a closing. We also chose a 'Gold Star' habit to focus on during another writing activity. Using capitals, end marks, spaces, correct spelling for words introduced, and using the lines to form letters were a few of the options they chose from. After reading Porcupine's Pajama Party, the kids were inspired to write their own plans for a sleep over party with all the activities they would do. 

A funny chapter book

During centers and Fundations  we were working with words ending in /ck/ and words having digraphs (sh, ch, th, wh). The kids loved using the letter boards with magnetic letters to spell words letter by letter. We also introduced 'bonus letters' for words ending in l, s, or f (miss, bell, stuff). Lots of great decoding strategies being used!

Word work center

Next week in social studies we will focus on the Thanksgiving story and learn about the Pilgrims and the Native Americans in Plymouth, MA. Meanwhile, there is no school Monday due to Veteran's Day observance.

Have a nice weekend,
Mrs. Dagley