On Monday, January 14th at the K-2 Morning Meeting my students were celebrated for their Kindness Missions in December and then we celebrated the Living the Learner Profile "Thinker" Award winner- Nathan Chilcote! Learning how to say different foods in Mandarin When we think about Opinion Writing we NOW think about O.R.E.O.'s and this is the Anchor Chart in the room that helps us remember all the important parts in a good Opinion writing piece. Throwback Thursdays always get us thinking... Students think about what they see, think, and wonder. They try to think about what we use today that is similar to what they are inquiring about and the most important piece is that they share their thoughts and ideas with each other and listen to how others come up with their ideas and thoughts and connections. Our Fuel for Thought Friday quote was a powerful one from Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Their interpretations and perspectives are amazing for being 7 and 8 years old. We ended our week at the CSU Girls Basketball Game and came home with a win! It was also nice to hear our CIS Choir Sing and watch our CIS High Steppers Dance on the court. This week was very short but we still did a lot of inquiring with our planner on Families and Trade, during writing's workshop as we develop our opinion writing techniques, in math as we discovered which method we prefer to use to subtract double digits, and in Reader's Workshop as we explored synonyms and character traits. We also did a STEM project about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s famous speech that incorporated reading, writing, math, social studies and science! Not too mention all the collaboration and team work they used to complete the challenge. They also had to research to get a visual of a rectangular prism and then they were ready to start sketching their designs to share with their groups. Teams had to work to come up with one design out of the four they had and then build it. Lots of scientific, mathematical and historical conversations were going on during this time. Not to mention a lot of questioning and debating on whose design was better or going to work or why someone's might not work. The final products looked so good so I just had to pull up Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s famous "I Have a Dream" Speech and play it as we checked each podium out to see if each group met the criteria for the challenge. We also ended our week at the Playhouse to enjoy Rainbow Fish and two other stories about Rainbow Fish. They really are so lucky to be this close to Playhouse Square and all the opportunities CIS has to go there without having to pay. Neither of my own children have had the opportunity to go with their school districts. ALSO if you have not checked out the amazing opportunities Say Yes to Education has for CMSD students you really need to look into it. Pictures are not allowed during the show but I snapped a few during the question and answer segment at the end of the show where they allow students to ask questions about anything. The questions are always really good and it's cool learning about how they create the puppets. I hope they came home and shared what they liked or learned with you- if not ask them or show them the blog and see if that sparks some conversations.
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Our Final kindness mission of the year and starting 2019 off with some challenges and inquiry1/12/2019 Our last KINDNESS Mission was to surprise Mrs. Smith with as many emojis as we could to show her how HAPPY we are that she joined our CIS Family this year, BUT unbeknownst to us she was not at work on Friday, December 21st so we had to send her our surprise via text that made her excited to see it when she returned this past week. She was so happy that she went out and bought each of them an emoji eraser!! The REALLY cool thing about spreading kindness is that it comes back to you. We sure had a lot of fun with these kindness activities and I'm hoping they start to do more random acts of kindness on their own. (PLEASE email me if/when they do) For sending in 20 pajamas we got to wear our pajamas, eat donuts and milk and watch a little bit of The Polar Express down in the Cafe on Friday, December 21st. Even though that can be a lot of fun this group wanted to come back to the room and hang out with their classmates in their pj's and socks before our Winter Break. During Lunch on that day I heard they would be entertained by our CIS Dance Team so I came down to enjoy the performance with them. In the afternoon my good friend and former teaching partner, Mrs. Taylor, came down and sang Christmas Carols with a few middle schoolers. I miss having her in a room with me and the students that had her as their kindergarten teacher were happy to welcome her to play and sing in our room. During Winter Break I went through my teaching bag that I cart back and forth to school everyday and had this surprise envelope waiting for me. My bucket was overflowing when I opened it up and realized I was the special person Brielle chose to write her kindness letter to. Man I'm going to miss our Addie missions. Twas the Day Before our New Year... and all thru the classroom, not a student was stirring, but maybe a teacher was!! So excited to see all of my THINKERS Tomorrow!! Tuesday morning we started off by talking about what we did over Winter Break. What our favorite activities were, what family or friends we got to hang out with, if we got to sleep in and if we played in any snow. Then we got to mix and mingle and try to find friends in our room that did certain things over Winter Break and had them sign their name by what they did until the whole sheet was filled up. I loved hearing all about what they discovered about each other during our Morning Meeting and then we started on our first challenge of the day. A STEM activity that involved a polar bear, toothpicks and marshmallows. Let the collaboration and inquiry begin... First they came up with their own design that met the specific criteria... Then they got with their groups and shared their designs and then started to brainstorm which design might be the best or how they could use a little of all of their ideas... Once their group design was finished the building began... And Finally they got to test their designs to see if their polar bear could fit into their dens. Can you believe that all of that collaborating and inquiry happened during our first morning back??? Our afternoon was spent with A LOT OF BRAIN SWEAT trying to UNLOCK the NEW YEAR with solving math problems with a partner of their choice. As you'll see from the pics they didn't get too far and many are still working on them! We ended our first day back with a toast and cheer to a year of learning, friendship, kindness and action taking by watching how countries all over the world ring in the new year and then redid the New York City countdown with a Dixie cup of sparkling apple cider! Our loud excitement even brought Ms. Beers to our room right as we were toasting! All week we ended our day with Our New Year's Resolution Poem. We spent a lot of time talking about what a resolution is this week and coming up with some goals for school and home. Now the hard part is making ourselves accountable for reaching them. I'm just happy I have 23 of them to keep me on track :-) They also added their goals for the year to our classroom door so they can see them and reflect on their progress as they enter and leave our room every day. This week we spent a lot of time talking about what we already know about Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. and researching what actions he took to make our world a better place. We talked about how it isn't enough to only know that he was killed because he did so much for our country that he would want us to focus on his accomplishments and his dreams. This week I had many books from my library outside in the hallway with questions for them to think and wonder about. It was an instant conversation piece as soon as they saw them. We found more information than we ever knew about through the library books, internet and a movie I picked up at the library. It was awesome to hear them go around and share their new found information with each other. Did you know Martin wasn't even his real name??? Take a look at our Throwback Thursday image. Many good discussions were had on what they saw, thought and wondered about this image. I'm still waiting for one of them to find out what this image really is. Teams got together to act out our new vocabulary words to our story How Chipmunk Got His Stripes. We spent some time solving a real world math problem in our classroom. Each of their tables have Jenga in a zippered pouch that they get to play when they finish work or as a random incentive prize. Well, over the course of the past couple months many pieces have been moved around from table to table and each bag had different amounts in them so they came up with a mathematical way to solve this problem. Ask them what we did to solve this problem. On Friday we started with some Fuel for Thought by connecting and reflecting on a quote while we celebrated wearing jeans! What a Great First Week back!
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AuthorMrs. Humphrey
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