Here is a letter from me to you...

Learning about Puffins!

We wrapped up our letter unit this week but continued to delight in making deliveries to other classes with our letters and in receiving letters from friends surprising us at the door! The letter writing unit has taught the format and organization of a letter which will be used as we head into Persuasive/Opinion writing next week. Be prepared to receive requests in letter form which may include persuasive reasons for granting them (or not!).

During our arctic unit, we loved reading Night of the Pufflings. Puffins are sea birds that nest in lands up north such as Iceland. Iceland has a wonderful tradition of children searching for and rescuing young pufflings for the two weeks that they fly off the cliff for the first time into the sea. Some of these young birds confuse the lights of the town with moonlight shining on the sea, and end up crash landing in the town, where they are unable to fly off from. That's where the kids come in - searching, rescuing, and releasing them the next day down at the beach. We also saw a video clip of this event.

Our seal shaped booklets and arctic library area

Riveting true story!

While learning about the arctic, we found out that one of our own states has land within the arctic circle - Alaska! We have been working on Alaskan booklets, some of which went home Friday. We also read about the brave and famous  dog named Balto who in 1925 saved the town's people of Nome Alaska by carrying life saving medicine by dog sled from Anchorage to Nome through blizzards and hardships. A statue of Balto is in New York City in Central Park.

        

Here were two other books that were popular this week. One followed a Native girl from the arctic fishing up tiny treasures sent from a boy in the rainforest which brighten up her world and which prompts her to drop her own treasure of a polar bear necklace into the ocean that he later discovers. The other was full of drama as a boy trudged through blizzards and freezing temperatures to reach the pole...which the reader assumes is the north pole, only to be surprised at the end to find it is the bus stop pole! 

Our poster for living things/non living

Sorting living from non living

Our sorting group!

Learning all the features of living things and sorting pictures of living and non living things were a focus in science this week. 

Topic 8 in math includes writing a two digit number in expanded notation (45 is 40 + 5) and working with rods and cubes to make and count two digit numbers. We are counting by tens from any number on the 100 chart, finding ten more and ten less from a number, and identifying which digit is in the tens place and which is in the ones place.

Here we are at a couple of centers - computer reading and making words ending in silent e (King Ed).

Starfall reading

Making words

Our snow globe writing went up in the hall and is a nice winter display:

Snow Globe inspired writing

We spent time on Friday learning about a courageous and famous American, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. We listened to a clip by Kid President about the  life and accomplishments of Dr. King and heard how we might be part of his dream to treat all people fairly and equally. We had several texts telling about his life growing up and others telling about some of the first brave people to challenge unfair laws or to be the first to follow the new laws despite opposition. The little first grader, Ruby Bridges, was one example that we read about.


Well the stomach bug visited our room this week in a rapid manner - Thursday was our peak day of children out sick. Hopefully everyone who was going to get it already has had it and it is behind us now. The room has been cleaned, cleaned, and cleaned some more!

Brace yourself for the snow - the kids will be happy and Go Pats!
Mrs. Dagley