Getting to Know Our Friends from Australia

Today was a great day! We really feel more connected to our friends in Australia now. We received a package of gifts from them as I am sure that you all know by now since the crew was so excited about them. The package contained: clip-on koalas (enough for one for each of our crew), a flag, stickers, a book, a calendar, kangaroo counters, vegemite, a kangaroo pen, coins, and notes and brochures about their school. It also contained two gifts for me from Mrs. Price: an echindna ornament and two stuffed koalas. The package arrived while we were practicing measuring and we opened it right away. It was very exciting.

Then as if that wasn't exciting enough, later in the day some of us got to Skype individually with our buddy from Australia. We talked mostly about pets but were able to ask any other questions we had.  About half of us (or a bit more than half) got to chat with our buddy. Next Monday, we will have another chance for the rest of the crew to chat with their buddy.

Here we are wearing our new clip-on koalas on our fingers right before we left to go home. We were excited but very quiet in this picture because Madison was still Skyping with her buddy at the time. I love this! I get just as excited as the crew about connecting with our friends in Australia. In January, a girl from their class will be visiting our school while she is traveling around the United States during her summer vacation. We can't wait to meet her in person.

After  school I got the picture below from Mrs. Price. It shows some parrots sitting outside their window while we were all Skyping. I will have to show the crew tomorrow.

Book Fair

The Book Fair is this week. We visited it this morning. There were so many great books. The Book Fair is open all week before school, after school and during the school day. Family Night is on Tuesday evening from 4:00 to 7:30 pm. Stop by and check it out.

Homework
Reading ~ Read a good book or two.
Math ~ Home Link 4.5 Measuring with a Ruler

Important Dates
11/17-11/21 Book Fair
11/20 Service Learning Trip to Bonaventure Senior Living Center
11/20 Thanksgiving Feast at school - Click here to sign up
11/26-11/28 No School ~ Thanksgiving
12/5 Fieldwork to Joyous Chinese Cultural Center
12/19 Fieldwork to Pacific Ocean Market and King's Land Restaurant
12/22 - 1/5 Winter Break
2/26 Winter Voyage ~ Day 1 - not an overnight trip (Day 2 will be in April - also not an overnight trip)

Race to $1.00

Another fun game that you might like to play at home with your family is Race to $1.00.  At this point in the year, we are not using quarters and dollars and are calling the game Coin Exchange. We will soon add both of those and begin calling it Race to $1.00 - perhaps your child is ready for those now - if so, go ahead and use them, that is differentiation. This is a fun way to practice exchanging coins and counting combinations of coins. Enjoy.

Race to $1.00

You need: a partner, collection of pennies, nickels, dimes, quarters and a dollar bill, two dice.

Players take turns rolling the dice and taking that many pennies. On their turn, players may exchange 5 pennies for a nickel, 10 pennies for a dime, 2 nickels for a dime, etc.

Play continues until one player has collected enough coins to exchange them for a dollar bill. To make the game easier, use only one die or choose a smaller amount (50 cents) as the winning amount. 

As you play ask your child: How much money do you have now? Who has more money? How much more?

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

IA (Integrated Arts)
Our IA next week is Music.

Looking for a Good Book?

If you are looking for  a good book for your child, you will find some on my Pinterest boards. I use Pinterest to keep track of good books for various purposes. You do not need to have a Pinterest account to view the pages. So click here and browse away. You might find some great gift ideas or books to check out from the library. Once you are on the Pinterest page, you can click on any "board" to see a variety of books in that category. Then if you click on the picture of the book, it will take you to a larger picture of the book. If you click that larger picture, it will most often take you to that book on the the Douglas County Public Library website and you can place it on hold from there. Then you will get an email from the library when the book is in and you can go and pick it up.

Homework
Reading ~ Read a good book or two.
Math ~ Home Link4.4 Measuring with Inches

Here We Are in Australia...

Okay, not really, but here are some photos of what our recent Skype session with Mrs. Price's class looked like in Australia. It is interesting to see the Skype session from a different angle. Hopefully you saw the post on Monday about meeting our buddies. Tomorrow the crew will get bookmarks with a picture of their buddy on it. (Thanks, Mrs. Price for the idea.) Then next week we will Skype with them again in smaller groups so that we can really try to have a conversation with them now that we have "met". This is a great way to learn about another culture and see things from a different perspective.

Other Apps and Websites We Use

Today we will finish off our series about apps and websites we use in class. Of course, we are always learning about and adding new apps and websites to our devices but this will give you a good idea of some that we like to use.

Apps on our iPads

Websites on the Resources Page of our Crew Blog

Homework
Reading ~ Read a good book or two.
Math ~ Home Link 4.3 The Foot-Long Foot

Library
We have library tomorrow. Please help your child remember to return his or her books.

Measuring

We talked about measuring today. We learned that sometimes we can use nonstandard units of measurement to measure things. Today we used parts of our bodies to measure things around our classroom. We certainly had fun doing this.

Homework
Reading ~ Read a good book or two.
Math ~ Home Link 4.2 Measuring with Hand Spans