9/19/19

It almost started to feel a little like fall this morning!  The class started the day outside, feeding and caring for the animals in their small groups.  Then, they came inside for the week's Farm News and to share the writing assignments that they worked on at home.  They did a great job with these, and everyone actually did it!  I told them that I was so excited that I would bring them a prize next week!

The kids are almost finished with their arts projects.  They should be able to go home next week.  

In science, the kids added more important dates to our class timeline.  They are really getting faster at determining where to put the cards.  We decided that I need to expand the timeline across another wall!

We reviewed the important material from chapter 3.  The students wrote down their top 3 more interesting facts from the chapter, which led to a great discussion!  We talked about issues with lunar calendars, the fact that our days of the week are named for Norse gods, 

Stonehenge, and so much more!  Next, the class shared their creative projects.  I loved the creativity!  There were posters, models, moving parts, shining lights... it was awesome!  

In grammar, the kids learned about nouns: common, proper, concrete, abstract, and collective.  We also talked about the fact that proper nouns can be made up of more that one word, such as the Golden Gate Bridge, Valentine's Day, and Theodore Roosevelt.  In this case, each word must be capitalized.  Next, we talked about past, present, and future tenses of verbs.  Although the regular verbs were easy, some of the irregular ones tricked a few of the kids!  The English language is so complicated!  They will be working with these concepts over the next few days.

The class worked on a vocabulary crossword puzzle to review their Indian in the Cupboard material.  We went through each discussion question, talking about each one.  The kids are loving this book!  The teepees that they had worked on were now complete, and I gave them a writing assignment.  The class had to brainstorm what things would be like if Omri brought them to life along with Little Bear.  What would normal sized things be like for you if you were tiny?  In order to help them brainstorm, I let each one pick out a little plastic Indian of their very own.  They took these, and the teepees, outside.  They also took their notebooks.  I wanted them not just to play (although some honest to goodness PLAY was one of my goals!), but to get down and think about the world from the toy's perspective.  They will be using their notes to help them write down their stories at home.