Earth Day

Last week Tuesday we celebrated Earth Day. We read a book called 10 things I can do to help my world by Melanie Walsh. This book gave us many ideas about things we can do to make Earth a better place. Each student used their hand to make the world and then wrote an Earth Day promise. Some promises include: turning off the lights when we're not in the room or throwing trash away. Ask your child about their Earth Day promise!

Bear Goes Over the Mountain

Last week we practiced the play Bear Goes Over the Mountain, adopted from the song "The Bear Goes Over the Mountain". This play had many parts and students were able to practice their expression and intonation. We practiced changing our voices to show if the character was happy or sad. Each student was assigned a role of either the Narrator, Birds, Bear, Bees, or Trees. The final performance was on Thursday. Each group did an excellent job reading with lots of expression and making their character sound happy. Ask your child about their role!

Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory

Last week Friday we were able to see the third, fourth and fifth graders practice their musical, Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory. Our class enjoyed seeing the decorations to make the gym look like Wonka's factory. They especially liked seeing the oompa loompas in their green wigs! Great job to the third, fourth and fifth graders!

Charlie with his golden ticket.

The ompa loompas singing about a child misbehaving.

212 News

Phonics: Each week we have been focusing on a vowel pattern such as –ar, -ir and –or, that can be heard in the words car, bird, and corn. Students practice spelling and sounding out different letter combinations that make the vowel pattern. At the end of the week each student takes a peer spelling check.

Reading: Our focus has been on making predictions and comparing and contrasting. We read various stories about the three little pigs and tried to make predictions about what would happen next. We read The Three Shapely Pigs, The Three Little Javelins, and The True Story about the Three Little Pigs. It was interested to compare how the stories were different and the same. During reader’s theater performances students have been practicing using intonation and inflections to make their part sound more exciting.

This week we are comparing and contrasting the plants and seasons. We read a story about how plants change in each season and made a KWL chart to about what we learned.

Writing: We have been all about writing informational reports. Students are getting better at remembering to start the report with a title and topic sentence. As a class we wrote an informational report about the savanna. In media with Mrs. Seeger students typed, formatted, and added a picture from the internet to their report. Students have been meeting in small groups to research a habitat and using books from the library learn facts about their habitat. Ask your child about the report we wrote up about the savanna!

Math: Our main focus has been on shapes. Students have practicing identifying three-dimensional shapes including the cube, cylinder, pyramid, cone, rectangular prism, and sphere. We compared the similarities and differences of the sides, faces, and points of each of the shapes. In the next unit we will review money and begin talking about equal shares and fractions.

Hospital Field Trip: Please check our classroom blog for pictures and information about what we did at the hospital!

Important Dates Coming Up:

No School-April 18^th

Reader’s Theater-May 27^th

Author Visit Amy Pleiming-May 29^th

Hospital Field Trip

On Tuesday we had our field trip to the Mayo Hospital in the morning. At the hospital we talked about what happens when you go to the hospital and the type of clothing that doctors wear. Bonita and Janet took us  around the hospital and see where patients rest before they go into surgery and we went into the lab and looked at blood through a microscope. Students learned about the different parts in blood such as white blood cells, red blood cells and platelets. We also got to see the inside of an ambulance. Some students got to see their heart rate and have their blood pressure taken. Thanks again to our parent volunteer for joining us! 

Brody, Claire, and Kallie volunteered to be the family going to the hospital.

Kallie was the patient going to the doctor for a check up.

Bonita used a stethoscope to listen to Kallie's heart and lungs.

This blanket can fill up with warm air to keep patients warm.

Hunter got to dress up in the clothes a doctor wears!

Students got to see what the inside of our bodies look like.

Bonita said our fist is the same size as our heart.

The first graders met Skeleton Bob. He has 206 bones!

Students got to see what blood looks like under a microscope.

We checked Bailey's heart rate. Her heart beat 99 times per minute.

We got to see Kallie's heart beats on a heart monitor.