Where did the week go?

I'm still working on a slide show of pictures from Safety Town...
We continue to be busy learning about the moon, showing not telling in our writing, 3 dimensional shapes and problem solving in math, and of course enjoying new reading books.

IMPORTANT:
KEEP WORKING ON THOSE BOOSTERTHON PLEDGES!
LIBRARY BOOKS TOMORROW!
PARTY MONEY DUE TOMORROW: Thanks to those of you that have sent yours in!

 FUN STUFF FROM HOME:

Owen lost his FIRST tooth on Wednesday....he worked on it ALL day at school and it finally came out at home.  Looks like the Tooth Fairy thought is was a GOOD one!

Micah is quite the blogger!  She is blogging about her guided reading book...WAY TO GO!


MATH

This week we have focused on the attributes of each 3 dimensional shape.  We looked a the geometric shapes and listed what we saw and knew about each on our tree map.  I will recopy with all of our shapes for future reference.
                                     

The geometric shapes that we are responsible for are:

Vocabulary:

edges: where two faces meet

verticies: where two or more edges meet

faces: a flat surface on the 3 dimensional shape

apex: a point or a tip where no edges meet

What two shapes are MOST similiar?  What is the difference between the two? How can you sort all of these 3d shapes using attributes? Which shape is MOST different from all the rest? Good questions to talk with your pup about!

I love when I don't have to do all the teaching! ;) Claire did a great job connecting three dimensional shapes to real world objects! Tomorrow we will go on a 3d shape hunt around the school!

We started to notice that there are some objects that are made up of more than one shape.  Student 1: "A pencil is a cylinder."  Student 2: "Until it is sharpened!" So then I had to stop and talk about this WONDERFUL realization..."So what two shapes do you think make up a sharpened pencil?" There were some puzzled looks...it was kind of hard to understand that we had to imagine that FLAT surface between the cylinder and the cone.  But once I told them that if I cut the sharpened part off we would have two flat surfaces shaped like a circle... CONE quickly came to mind!  So SMART!  Well that started a whole lot of that kind of thinking! I am continually amazed by their thinking!

SCIENCE:

I sent the pups home with some MOON homework.  The directions say to go to the following website...
click here
After you pick some important dates you "should" find what phase the moon was in on that date.  Then the pup should color it in on thier recording sheet with a white crayon! I say should because I've been trying to get there today and it says the server is not loading...SO...these are not DUE until Dec. 3, 2012.

We made this map a couple of days ago.  We put everything we thought we knew about the moon. We may still have some questions...Today we watched Papa Get the Moon For Me (watch the book here)

and then we added some NEW things (in black).  It is so much fun to listen to the pups talk things out as we do different activities.  "NOWWWW I know what phases are!", "HEY, that's a cresent!", "A full moon is really only 1/2 of the moon."  "I think it orbits around the sun!" "No the sun orbits around the moon." "No the sun does not move ever!" Again...I love the thinking process and I can honestly say I don't remember thinking like this when I was SIX!

SHOW DON'T TELL

It looks as if I cut off the top of our chart...I starting "kindergarten sentence (as we like to call them)" is The boy went up the stairs.
We are having a lot of fun creating our "SPARKLE" "mood" sentences.  I can't wait until they begin to show up in our writing!  Some little pups are giving it a try but we still need some practice before we share with the world!

Well, it's hard to believe that a week of the 4 we had until Holiday Break is almost over! It is crazy how fast things seem to be going this year! I know this is an exciting time of the year but...we have lots to do and hopefully will be able to do some "fun" stuff.  However, the talking is getting a bit out of hand and I am having to change colors more than usual! Please remind your pup that best behavior is needed in order to learn and have fun at school!

Have a wonderful evening and thanks for all that you do!  I am ever so thankful each morning that I get to walk into this room with this bunch of PUPS!