Picture Day!

Writing and Handwriting-  The kids began their day by sharing their Thanksgiving writing assignments with the class.  As always, I made sure that the positive feedback was off the chart!  In addition to learning to write in complete sentences, capitalize letters, and use good handwriting, I am trying to give the students a positive attitude towards writing.  What better way than lots of compliments and applause from classmates?  For handwriting, we worked on writing a few of the spelling words from this week's list.  This is another difficult list, as it introduces the special sounds "ir" as in "bird", "er" as in "verse", and "ur" as in "nurse".  These all sound exactly the same.  The class learned another song today.  This one was to help them remember these three tricky sounds.

Art- In art class, Ms. Bev brought in the students' homemade finger paint back in to class.  The kids learned about primary, secondary, and tertiary colors with a very hands on lesson!  Although nervous about finger painting at first, they all got into it in the end! 

In history class, Ms. Allison and the class talked about their at home reading over ancient Greece.  They read about minotaurs and the Greek alphabet.  In class, they worked on writing their names using the Greek alphabet.  The kids were really interested in this, and many kept writing other words, as well!  They also learned about Venetian pottery.  As a project, they designed a Venetian vase. 

In math today, the class learned the difference of basic shapes.  They learned about sides and angles as they compared the different shapes.  We also worked on pattern recognition.  As a major brainteaser, the we all worked on a shape Sudoku puzzle together.  It wasn't easy, but they did it!

The class used their Spanish vocabulary as they made their own models of a house!  They cut out household items from magazines and pasted them into boxes, while discussing the Spanish names for each item.  They cut out portas, mesas, camas and all sorts of other things that go inside a casa!

Science- The children checked out their experiment from last week on the needs of plants.  One rose plant was placed in the dark, while one was placed in a sunny window.  There wasn't a lot of change, but they documented what they saw.  Ms. Caroline will be posting pictures during the break so the children can continue to make observations.  The class discussed the parts of a plant, learning about their roles.  They will be reading more on plants, as well as watching some great videos at home!

Language Arts- In grammar class, the students have been learning a lot about nouns, both common and proper.  Today, they moved on to learning about pronouns.  In order to keep the definitions set in their memories, we started a set of grammar cards for each child.  They will be using these cards to study their grammar terms and lists.  We talked more about the spelling list, and went over the different sounds that all sound like "er".  They worked in their spelling and language books.  We also read aloud in our Stepping Stones books.  The students had no idea that the readers actually use the concepts and words from the spelling lists.  Those curriculum writers and geniuses! Continue to study the spelling and phonics rules at home, and we will back it all up in class!