Don't count our chickens before they hatch.

Spanish- Ms. Joanne and the kids are working so hard getting ready for Spanish night! They are preparing to 'wow' you as they transform this place into a kid-run Spanish restaurant! On November 3^rd at 6:00, be sure to join us. Come hungry!

Spelling- We reviewed List 9 by doing jumping jacks with each letter! Let's get that blood pumping!

Grammar- Instead of diagramming sentences with only one adjective, we diagrammed sentences where a noun or pronoun is described by two adjectives. It seems that the students are really enjoying the act of breaking apart sentences! Why weren't we all introduced to this concept at such a young age? Maybe it wouldn't have been so difficult!

 
Reading- Each student took turns reading their book reports to the class. They did such a great job with these! We had a very detailed, super awesome comic strip of the book, a letter to persuade someone to read it, and three papers comparing and contrasting the book with the movie. I am very impressed! We will begin a new book, Earthshaking Earthquakes in a couple weeks. For this week, I am sending home a poem to read. I would love to get the kids thinking past the literal words on the page and think of the lessons that could be applied to their lives!

Math- The class continued their lesson in measurement today, as we used rulers to measure different lengths in inches, feet, and centimeters. They also learned how to convert from inches to feet, as well as centimeters to meters.

Agriculture Education- Our eggs, which are sponsored by Fayette County Farm Bureau, are on Day 6 of development! We learned about the incubator today, and we learned that the eggs have to be turned a few times each day in order for the embryos to develop properly. Believe it or not, broody hens that are setting on their eggs turn each and every one with their beaks! We have an automatic egg turner, which turns the eggs very slowly. They turn back to front four times per day.

Our incubator has been steady at 99.5 degrees... except for this morning. With the drop in temperature outside, the incubator was at 98.6 when I woke up this morning. So, I added a heater to the room where they are located. Now, we are back up to 99! When incubating eggs, it is best to keep the temperature between 99 and 102. However, if it's going to be a little “off”, it is better to be low than high! A low temperature may delay your hatch by a day or two, but a high temperature can have negative effects on the embryo development, causing defects or even death!

We candled the eggs today and saw the blood vessels spreading out, the air sac, the yolk, and even a small dot of an embryo in one of the eggs! We will candle them again next Thursday and should see much more action!

Science-  Today was one of those examples of how learning should be MESSY!  We elaborated on our lesson on ecosystems and learned about the Earth's 6 biomes.  The students read about each biome, discussing their different characteristics.  Then, we made our own biome Earth maps!  We glued different beans, spices, and popcorn to our maps to represent tundra, desert, deciduous forest, grasslands, taiga, and rainforest.  It may have been a little messy, but it was a great hands-on way to learn today's lesson!

Social Studies- Today, Mr. Dennis and the students talked about explorations of Balboa and Magellan. They also learned all about timelines, learning the term “chronological order”. We put events in chronological order using the life of Magellan. We are going to be working on making a huge timeline over the live of Ferdinand Magellan for next week!

Writing- Today, Ms. Sharon taught the kids about a book's setting, characters, plot, the conflict (or problem), and the solution. For some strange reason, the kids all decided to sing each of the words, each time anyone said them. “plot...Plot... PLOT!” Hey, they may actually remember those terms now! She then read to them scary Halloween stories to illustrate these parts. They loved it!

One of the things we have been working on in class is learning how to learn in a group. The students are all learning when to be funny, when to be serious, when to play, when to listen, and how to transition from one lesson to another without throwing a party in between! These are things that do not come easily for young children, and I keep reminding them that this is one of the lessons that we get to learn from learning together as a class! Talk to your kids at home about how to recognize when it's okay to “turn on” the fun and how to know when it is time to “turn it off”. Also, reminders on how to quickly move from one thing to the next will only help us in class! I am so thrilled that our beautifully fun-loving children are able to learn these valuable lessons in a loving environment that does not squash their spirits!