Happy 100th Valentine's Day!

Today is both 100th Day and Valentine's Day!  Put those two things together and you get a day filled with lots of celebrating.  Today was also the bracelet sale hosted by Room 14, so we definitely did not get a dull moment.

We started the day's festivities, with our One Hundred Day celebration this morning.  We have now all been at school for 100 days!  We read a story, learned how to make the 100 group on our Days of School counter, and we participated in several 100 Day stations.  There was a cup stacking station where you had to use 100 cups to build a tower, a bookmark making station, a station where students pictured themselves at 100 and drew what they thought they would look like, a stopping point for students to record a way to make 100, and a station where students had to roll a di 100 times.  They were to tally each number they rolled then find the winner.

In the midst of our celebrating, we also spent a period looking at estimation.  This week we began our weekly estimation jar.  On Monday (or Tuesday for this upcoming week), we put a different item in the jar.  We begin by looking at a referent for us to use to help us make a more accurate estimate.  The estimation jar is left out for the week and each student has an opportunity to make up to three estimates.  On Friday we count the items together then review the estimations.  The student with the closest estimate wins the contents of the jar.  

This afternoon we found our first estimation jar winner!  Julia won the jellybeans with an estimate of 100 which was quite close to the actual amount of 110.

We then did another estimation activity using conversation hearts.  Each student got some hearts and they had to estimate how many they thought would fit in a larger heart.  They then had to use their conversation hearts to fill in the heart to see how many would actually fit.  When they were done, they got to eat the candy!

The last two periods of our day were our Valentine's Day party.  We made bags, exchanged Valentines, and of course enjoyed our many delicious snacks.  Thank you to everyone who provided a treat for our classroom.  We really appreciated it!

Happy Valentine's Day from Room 20!

Snowmen at Night

This past month we've been talking a lot about snowman!  We spent a lot of time doing some "How To" writing on How to Build a Snowman.  

Our latest look at them took place in a story.  Together we read the story "Snowmen at Night" and discussed the illustrations.  We talked about how the snowmen looked three dimensional even though they were a flat picture on a page.  We talked about how shading and using shadows helped turn the circles into spheres.  Of course we decided to make our own "Snowmen at Night" illustrations.

Our three criteria for our project were:

1)Snowman (or woman) needed to be doing something.

2) Your snowman (or woman) was the main part of the picture.  No tiny, corner snowpeople for us!

3)You had to try shading your snowman (or woman).

We are not quite finished, but they are turning out lovely!

Using Our iPads

It's been a month now since we finally received our set of iPads.  We began using them for practice during our Daily 5 time for Word Work.  Students could choose from a few different apps that would allow them to practice their current word sort words.  We are still doing this each day.  One of the favourite word work choices is Spelling City.  This is a completely free app which allows students to search for their own word lists by looking up their teacher.  They can then work in a variety of games using their specific lists.  Each time we get new word sort words, Mrs. Deyoe updates the app.  

We are now using them for more things as well.  This morning we used them in small groups to help us represent numbers using base ten blocks.  This was a similar activity to the one we did yesterday, but this time the iPads were our tools!

As mentioned, the iPads are incorporated each day into Daily 5 activities.  We have ventured out from just our few Word Work applications and are now using the iPads for Read to Self, Writing (using Book Creator), and Word Work.  If students do not receive an iPad for the day, they are still able to choose from any of the Daily 5 choices.  

Here are some pictures of us working in Daily 5.

  

More Place Value Fun!

Today we were working again with a variety of concrete materials to help develop our understanding of Place Value.  We had two different activities during Math.  The first involved students travelling to different places in the room and making a number using a variety of different materials.  At each "station" there was a different material and a different number for them to make.  They had to count out the number first, then begin bundling the groups of ten.  When they were finished making their number, they had to record what it looked like.  

 After taking a few minutes to clean up, we moved onto to making a number a different way.  This time we used our Place Value mats, and built the number using base-ten blocks.