Lulu and the Brontosaurus

Lulu and the Brotosaurus is our current read aloud. Lulu wants a brontosaurus for her birthday but her parents say that she can't have one. She decides to go off and find one for herself in the woods behind her house and this is the beginning of her adventure. There is a repeated refrain in the book that the crew loves to join in on. Check out the video below to see them doing the chant. Ask your child to tell you all about this book and how much they enjoyed it.

Homework
No homework for the long weekend. Enjoy some great books with your child.

IA
Our IA next week is PE.

Video Clips of Our Day

To help you get a feel for what it is like in our classroom, I thought I would share a few video clips from various times of our day. (If you get this post by email, you will need to go directly to the blog to view the videos.)

Exploration Stations (in between reading groups):

Working on our sight words:

Stewardship Day - Cleaning and organizing our desks

Reading independently or with a buddy (4th grade buddies come in and read with different students each day):

Cleaning up after Exploration Stations and starting work on our sight words while singing the song Rockin' Robin.

Writing time - various students work with Ms. Wendy at the back table while I work with students at their desks:

Drum Circle led by Porter:

Making patterns with popsicle sticks:

Learning a new math game called Before or After:

Homework
Reading ~ Read a good book.
Math ~ Home Link 3.3 Number Line Hops

Library
We have library tomorrow. Please help your child remember to return his or her books if they have already done so.

You Can Learn Anything

Another teacher shared this great one and a half minute video with me. I shared it with the crew and wanted you to see it, too. (If you get this post by email, you will need to go directly to our crew blog to view the video - it doesn't come through in the email.)



Click here to view the video on YouTube.

This made me smile on Friday:

Homework
Reading ~ Read a good book or two.
Math ~ Home Link 2.1 Telephone Numbers

Crew News September 1, 2011

Expedition
Today we launched our first Expedition. It is our Social Studies Expedition and we will be spending a little under half of the school year on it. We started today by having a Silent Gallery Walk. A Silent Gallery Walk is where students walk around and look at items that are related to what we will be studying similar to how a social scientist might act. They think about what they are seeing and try to determine what we might be studying. They will be thinking about this overnight. We will let them in on the topic tomorrow. Having them look at items related to our topic and mull ideas over in their minds overnight increases their engagement and interest in the topic. They can't wait to find out what the "big secret" is - so if you know, please don't tell. Let them experience the whole process of discovering it on their own. You can peek at the Expedition page of our crew blog for a hint but I do keep the details there limited to so that I can keep the students wondering and very engaged.

Pete the Cat
You may have heard about one of the pattern books we read at school today. It was called Pete the Cat and there is a short video of the book and song. We LOVED singing the song and dancing along with the video. Check it out below.


Homework
Reading ~ Read a good book or two.
Math ~ Home Link 2.2 Counting Up and Back