Moon Phases and the Mobile Lab

This week in science class we started our observation of the moon phase cycle, beginning with the new moon on February 14th. Using links from our class website, we viewed and logged the moon phases for the week of vacation up through today. The children are encouraged to look for the moon when they are at home or just driving around town. Many children were surprised to see the moon out of our classroom window yesterday afternoon -- a waxing gibbous! The moon has a different rise and set cycle than the sun, so it is often visible during the day and night. Using these links from our class website, the class also chose Apollo 11 videos to view from the NASA website. On these original videos from the 1960s, the boys and girls saw Neil Armstrong take his first step onto the moon and heard his famous "One step for Man, one giant leap for Man Kind" proclamation. Thank you to our new Technology Integration Specialist, Mrs. Mack, for helping us access these resources while using the mobile laptop lab right in our classroom!

Kailey's Mom Comes to Read

Kailey's mom came to read to us on the last day before February vacation. Thank you for spending time with our class and reading these two funny stories about a snowman and our favorite class animal, penguins!

Compare and Contrast Reports

Our most recent story in reading was Cook-A-Doodle-Doo by Janet Stevens. This humorous story is a "fractured" fairy tale based upon the classic folk tale, Little Red Hen. After reading both stories, each child wrote a two paragraph Compare and Contrast Report.

For this project, we followed the writing process and first compared the stories on a chart. After this analysis was finished, the children wrote drafts of each paragraph using a graphic organizer. Then, after revising and editing, we began our final copies. In the compare paragraph, the students individually analyzed how the stories were similar and used words such as also, both, too, similar and for example in their writing. For the contrast paragraph the children wrote about how the two tales were different while using words such as but, however, and although.

Be looking in your child's backpack for these reports to come home this week. I am particularly impressed with the development in their writing since the beginning of the year. Once again, a marvelous job by the boys and girls of Room 29!

"How to Draw" Books

What Do Illustrators Do? by Eileen Christelow is recent story in our anthology which chronicles the process illustrators follow from "dummy " sketches through to the published book. This story was a perfect application for applying the comprehension strategy of sequencing. The boys and girls also chose a drawing to "How To" and published their own detailed, six step "doodle" book. Each student had their own doodle topic -- check out this impressive list below!

How to Draw ..... frog, double star, smiley face Red Sox Fan, pig, dog, running pencil, violin, erupting volcano, turtle, Massachusetts, globe, sun, hockey stick and puck, tree, flower, fish, "Eye Grow", Snowman, Tow Truck, Stick Person, Tree House.

Uthman's mom as Mystery Reader

Uthmans' mom came to read to us on January 27th! She read Down to the Sea with Mr. Magee by Chris Van Dusen to the class. The beautiful illustrations in this story were a timely reinforcement to the concepts of "A bird's eye view" that we had learned about in our weekly story, What Do illustrators Do? We also enjoyed some fun Jack Prelutsky poems too.

Plimouth Plantation

Plimouth Plantation came to visit our classroom on January 29th. Randy, a modern day Wampanoag from Cape Cod, captivated the boys and girls with the Native American artifacts from this living history museum. Check out the slide show to the right for pictures of the class during this HPTA funded visit. If your child has not been to Plimouth Plantation, think about planning a family visit this school year. We are fortunate to live so close to this world class museum that has such a perfect tie to our third grade Social Studies curriculum.