Valentine's Fun

We celebrated the 100th day!

As you may know I was gone during the fun festivities on Valentine's Day.  My family took a quick trip to Disney World.  When I booked it, I completely forgot about the program!  I had my amazing sub (Diane Smith) take some pictures.  Nolan broke my classroom camera so they are a little fuzzy.  I am going to have to start bringing my nice camera to school I guess!  

Kendra (Major's mom) came and read to our class this week for I love to Read Month.  On Tuesday we have a cartoonist coming to our school.  If you would like to come and read to our class, please let me know!  Even in March, April, or May.  They really enjoy this.   In reading we have been really working on the magic e and long vowel combinations (ai/ay and ea/ee this week).  Some students are beginning to confuse their short vowels with their long vowels.  Here is a quick youtube video to watch that will help:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JHO1aJyxWIE

You may know this already but I recently learned this fact: You can make your own YouTube station that bookmarks videos for you.  This is a very useful tool if your child wants to watch things on youtube but you are not sure if they are appropriate.  Bookmark the videos that I give you and they will probably watch them because they really like them when we do them in class!  

I am going to start using sensory boxes to help with our word work time.  This week I am making some moon sand and putting shells in it.  Then the kids have to sort short and long e sounds with our parent volunteers.  The kids really like hands on learning.  I found the recipe on pinterest and thought some of you may be interested:  http://www.growingajeweledrose.com/2013/01/cloud-dough-recipes.html.  Take a bucket and fill it with the moon sand.  Write words on rocks (or math problems) and have them sort them or spell them or you can just make it for fun if you would like too!  My kids LOVED it!  We had to try it out tonight of course!  

Lastly, if you go on ixl.com at home (remember 20 minutes a day improves test scores by 20%) the category that I would practice next is graphing (bar graphs, picture graphs, and tally graphs are our focus).  We are finishing up measurement this week.  Have a good week!  

Finally I have some pictures of our fun that we have been having!  Michaela (Jack's mom) took some fun pictures while doing shaving cream spelling words with some kids in the cafeteria.  This is very fun for the kids.  I use a cookie sheet to keep the cream contained and neater.  Your own children would love this for practicing their words at home!

Jason had the scientist bag at his house and he made an amazing volcano!  Here is a picture of him sharing it with our group!

The next chapter in math we will be starting measurement.  Have your child measure items around your house using different objects like shoes, pencils, toothpicks to practice.

We have a super busy week next week.  The students will perform for the whole school on Wednesday, perform for their grandparents on Thursday and do a craft, and have the cultural liason (Yuko) read a story in Japanese to them!  Remember, there are no spelling words next week due to review week.

Last night I was meeting some friends for my book club.  After dinner we went to Barnes and Noble and I bought some magazines for the boys.  Then I got to thinking that maybe you would like some good suggestions of magazines for your child!  MaKayla brought in a Ranger Rick magazine the other week and the kids were super excited about it.  This is a really good magazine to get kids reading.  Sometimes if your child is reluctant to read books, a magazine may be just what he or she needs!    Here are some links to them for you:

National Geographic for Kids

Sports Illustrated for Kids

Lego Magazine

American Girl