We Love Ms. Josie!

Ms. Josie is our reading teacher and we all love to get the chance to read with her. When she walks in our door everyone raises their hand and asks her to read with them. She does have a specific list of students that she works with but she always makes time to read for a minute or two with other kids so that they all get a turn to read with her eventually if they would like. She also just pops in sometimes when we are reading and sits on the floor with us and kids end up gathering all around her to take a turn reading to her. We love Ms. Josie.

Nonfiction Books

We have finished our All About books. They were a huge project for us that began with research and ended with putting that research together in a nonfiction book. Be sure to watch our Kidblog page as we will be adding ShowMes about our books there soon for you to see and share with family members. (Click on the pictures to see a larger version.)

If you take a look at our books, you will see:

Eye-Catching Covers

All About hummingbirds

All About Deer

All About Lemurs

Helpful features like a Table of Contents

Detailed Illustrations

Illustrations with Captions and Word in Bold Print

Maps

Fun Facts

Glossaries

About the Author pages

Important Dates
4/21 Crew Performance of "The Empty Pot" at 3:30 pm
4/22 No School ~ Comp Day for Teachers
5/11 Student-Led Conference for First Grade
5/30 No School ~ Memorial Day
6/1 Last Day of School ~ Nooooo!

Guest Speaker about Bees

Today, Mr. Leo, was our guest speaker. He came to talk to us about bees and how they help gardens. We visited his garden and beehives back in August. We learned so much about bees and got another small taste of honey from Mr. Leo's bees. Mmm. Ask your child to tell you all about it.

Worm Experiments Part 2

We did some more worm experiments today. This time we got to get our hands on the worms and try the experiments ourselves. It was challenging to get the worms in the correct position to measure them. Scientists have a tough job!

Seeds Are Growing!

Worm Experiments

This week we will be learning how to do some experiments with our worms. Today we tried to determine if they prefer light or dark and how they move and react to being touched. Later in the week we will try to determine if they prefer wet or dry conditions and we will try to measure how long some of our worms are. I did the experiments today but the crew will do the one on Friday. Ask your child to tell you what we learn.

Looking for a Good Read Aloud?

If you are looking for a good book to read aloud to your child, you should take a look at the Gooney Bird Greene series by Lois Lowry. I am currently reading the first book, Gooney Bird Greene, to the crew. Gooney Bird is a quirky little girl who teaches her second grade class how to tell good stories. The books in the series are funny and the chapters are just the right length for a good bedtime (or anytime) read aloud. Gooney Bird teaches other concepts in the other books in the series - things like poetry, vocabulary, geography, fables, etc. She teaches all of this while the reader is laughing and doesn't even notice that they are learning. This series is written at the end of 3rd grade or beginning of 4th grade level so it would not really be appropriate as a "on my own" book for most of our crew yet. Children are developmentally ready and able to listen to books that are about 2 grade levels above their current reading level so this series is just perfect for reading aloud to students in our crew.

Recently we finished reading aloud, Lulu and the Brontosaurus by Judith Viorst. Both of these are great books that we have all really enjoyed. They are also part of a series of books so look for other books in the series to have for your family read aloud time. Your whole family will enjoy them.

Important Dates
4/22 No School ~ Comp Day for Teachers
5/11 Student-Led Conference for First Grade
5/30 No School ~ Memorial Day
6/1 Last Day of School ~ Nooooo!