Jerry Pallotta

I was super excited to meet the children's author Jerry Pallotta at the SCIRA reading conference this past weekend.  I was able to hear him speak about his books and even bought some to bring back to the kids.  I must say the students are LOVING his books this week.  Plus they were very excited to see that we now have a signed book by him.  Here is a photo we got to snap with Mr. Pallotta.

Miss Lewis, Jerry Pallotta, & me

Biography Buddies

All month we have been learning about biographies in writing.  We have read some great biographies of famous Americans.  Now we have begun to write a biography about a friend in the class.  Last week we interviewed our biography buddy and began a rough draft.  This week we are publishing the biographies.  The students have been super excited about this part of our day.  We love hearing stories about our friends and having a chance to tell someone else about ourselves.  I can't wait to show off the biographies of these Future Famous Americans.

 Elijah & Elias

Lew & David

 Aubrey & Matthew

 Victoria & Xavier

 Emily & Hannah

 Jillian & Taylor

 Lance & Trevor

 Jackson & Lynli

 Maxwell & Mary-Caroline

 Ryland & Benjamin

Rufus, Alex, & Zack

Slide, Stack, or Roll?

Shapes, shapes, shapes!  We explored our 3D shapes this week with a wonderful hands-on activity.  The students used the mini 3D shapes to test them for if they can roll, slide, or stack. The students loved this activity so much I had a hard time getting the shapes back from them.  They just wanted to keep experimenting.

Matthew & Jackson are sliding the cone.

 The yellow group is testing to see if their shapes will stack.

The red group is working together to stack their shapes.  Great teamwork!

 Here's the green group hard at work.

 The blue group is experimenting with the 3D shapes.

 Ella was so proud to have successfully stacked the sphere on the cylinder!  I couldn't believe it myself.  So I definitely had to snap a photo for proof.

Lynli and Taylor were working hard with the shapes.

Benjamin and Maxwell were having fun with the shapes.

Ryland has his bag of shapes ready to go!

 Trevor & Rufus were comparing the cube and rectangular prism.

Emily decided to compare the cylinder and the sphere.  She said they both have a curved edge.

Little Researchers

We have started our first research cycle.  Everyone selected a research topic and has been digging in our books for new facts.  Each pair of students has their own basket of books for their topic.  The students LOVE spreading out all over the room to read these nonfiction books.

 Lew & Lynli are learning about bears.

 Hannah, Aubrey, & Mary-Caroline are researching dolphins.

 Zack & Ella are reading about sharks.

 Rufus & Jackson are learning about snakes.

 Elijah & Xavier are researching dinosaurs.

 Our space explorers are Alex & David.

 Taylor & Jillian are digging into our African American Biographies.

 Emily & Ryland are our president experts.

 Benjamin & Maxwell are researching transportation.

Trevor & Lance are learning all about the human body.

Elias is researching weather books.

Victoria is reading about big cats.

Be My Valentine

Happy Valentine's Day!  We just wanted to snap a few Valentine photos.  What do you say?  Will you be our Valentines?

I hope everyone enjoyed the Valentine card made by these little sweeties!

Proper Noun Hunt

We have been learning about proper nouns in writing.  This week we had a proper noun hunt through our biographies and weekly reader magazines.  We used our magnifying glass to spot some proper nouns.  Then we chose a few to record on our sheet, remembering to use a capital letter.  The students LOVED this activity!

 Benjamin hunted proper nouns in a Benjamin Franklin biography, of course!

 Trevor found Dr. Seuss!

 Taylor found Roosevelt.

 David found some proper nouns.

 Elijah was excited to hunt for proper nouns about Jackie Robinson.

 Elias found Native Americans.

 Jackson found proper nouns in a Franklin D. Roosevelt biography.

Ryland found proper nouns in the Christopher Columbus biography.

 Lynli found proper nouns about our president.

Lynli recorded the president's whole family - Michelle, Sasha, Malia, and Barack Obama - as her proper nouns.

Benjamin Franklin

We have been learning about some famous Americans in Social Studies.  The students were very excited to learn about Benjamin Franklin since we have a Benjamin in our class.  We read a few biographies about his life.  Then we made a kite, in honor of his famous experiment, and wrote a fact about him on the kite.  Maxwell proudly showed off his kite.

Nonfiction Books!

We have started learning how to read nonfiction books in our reading workshop.  There were squeals of excitement around the room as the students dove into these new books.  They were so excited that I couldn't keep them in their seats!

 Lynli, Mary-Caroline, & Matthew

 Jackson, Jillian, Lew, & Ella

 Xavier, Ryland, & Victoria

 Elias, Benjamin, Trevor, Taylor, & Aubrey

 David & Maxwell

 Elijah, Emily, Lance, & Hannah

 Elijah was so excited to find a baseball book!

Ryland was very excited to find a wrestling book.  He marked a page to share.

I loved seeing all my students excited about reading nonfiction books!  We have such super readers in our class!