Mayor Ron Jensen

In honor of DEAR week we had a very special guest reader. Our special guest was Mayor Ron Jensen. He read a very funny book, "How to Babysit a Grandpa."  The kids were all so excited and loved him. Thank you Mayor Jensen for coming to our class. 

Numbers 11-20

In math we are focusing on our numbers 0-20. To help support, and build our number recognizition we practiced writing our numbers. After we wrote each number we added to our base 10 block. We first started building a 10 base ten block. After we practiced writing each number added to our new base 10. The kids really had a lot of fun with this, and began to get a strong visual of how the numbers looked with a base 10. 

Joining Numbers

In math we are focusing on joining and separating numbers up to 10. To celebrate for the holidays we used Santa as our manipulative. Each child had a turn to be a Santa number. Using the two giant 5-frames helped them understand how to join the numbers. I got the idea to use the huge 5 frames from Chalk Talk, a fabulous blog. I can see how it truly works with the students and understand. They also get excited to act out the math problem. 

Gingerbread Man and Girl

Today we read the books the Gingebread Girl and the Gingerbread Boy. After we read the books we made a Venn diagram comparing the two different stories. We wrote about which character we would rather be after we made our comparisons. For math time we are focusing on the numbers 11-15. We used 5 frames to create the numbers and displeased how many gingerbread santas could fit on the 5 frames. 

Jingle our Elf

Since Christmas is quickly approaching we are celebrating in school a different way each day. Today we celebrated by reading about elves, Santas helpers. We read the book elf on a shelf. We actually have a little elf in our own classroom, and named him the adorable name of Jingle. To celebrate the elves we made elf hats (which were super easy). After we brainstormed about the different types of jobs elves have and wrote about their jobs. We just LOVE our elf, Jingle, and are getting excited about Christmas. 

Bad Apple

Since Thanksgiving is approaching today we talked about Friendship. We read the book Bad Apple and made text to self connections about friendship. The class was so great thinking about why we love our friends, and why they make us feel so great. 

Force and Motion

This week in science we are discussing force and motion. We discussed what that means and charted the responses. Then I showed them one of Kennedy's toy fire truck. I asked them if the truck can move by itself. We graphed either yes or no with a little tire they made. 

After everyone voted I had them sit on the edge of our colorful carpet. I placed the truck in the middle and told everyone to shout move at the truck 1 time. They had a lot of fun watching it not move. We then practiced moving the truck with a push or a pull creating force into the truck. After we made a car craft quickly.