Addition Kickball Game!

On Monday afternoon, Miss Wise and I combined our 7th age math classes for a game of "Addition Kickball"! It was a huge success- great weather, great fun, and great fact review! Here are some group pictures.

Pilot Sound Web

My Pilot language class and I built a word web today with yarn. We had a lot of fun! We started the game by isolating the beginning sound of our names, and then thought of a food that paired with this sound. For my name, I chose apples. Then we had to say this sentence: "(Fill in name) likes (fill in food). " I said, "Mrs. Armstrong likes apples." After each child's turn, they passed the yarn to a friend. It built an interesting web!

We will have fun this year playing with letters and sounds. Stay tuned!

6th Age Reading

The 6's and I are learning how to blend C-V-C (consonant-vowel-consonant) words with our bodies! Take a look at these videos for reference. Video #1 shows the reading students touching their head while producing the first consonant sound, touching their hips on the middle vowel sound, and touching their toes on the last consonant sound. We had a lot of fun making up silly C-V-C words to blend with our bodies!

The next set of videos shows the students blending the words slowly (with the help of a friend who points to each student individually- as a clue for them to produce the sound) in chairs while holding up letter cards.

We will continue to review these skills when we dive into the book. Happy Thursday!

7th Age Math Chapter 1

The mathematicians in 7th age math are busy learning the routines of the classroom as we transition into the first chapter: Facts Through 12. We will use this chapter as a platform before diving into Chapter Two: Using Numbers Through 100. (This will include place value, greater than and less than, etc.)

Class opens daily with a word problem drill in their journals. These word problem drills are a great way to "warm up" our brains after lunch and recess. It gets us in the math mood!

Beginning this Friday (tomorrow) we will start memorizing basic addition and subtraction facts (0-18). This begins with +1 facts through 10 (1+0=1, 1+1=2, etc.). We will keep this set in the classroom for review and will continue to build on them throughout the year, but I highly recommend keeping a set at home as well. Spending a few minutes each day memorizing these basic facts will really build upon your child's maturing confidence in math. It will also aid them when we do regrouping addition and subtraction later on this year.

Tomorrow is also the start of our "Estimation Fridays". Each week I will bring in a new set of objects to be placed in our estimation jar. Your child will have a chance to put their brains to the test! The jar may be filled with holiday-themed items or sweet treats. Stay tuned for tomorrow's estimation project!

On Monday (weather depending) we will have a math kickball tournament with Miss Wise and Mrs. Mollett's math class on the blacktop. Upon landing on a base, the mathematicians must answer a simple math fact before advancing further. It is a fun game that the kids really enjoy playing! Keep posted for a video of this event!

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact me at any time!

The Great Lima Bean Experiment

We have been busy in science!

After classifying items as either living or nonliving, we furthered our study of plants by doing an experiment with lima beans. We put 5 lima beans in a bag with a moist towel and some air. This bag was taped to a sunny classroom window. These lima beans had water, food (sunlight) and air- all properties a living thing must have in order to grow and change. The next bag of 5 lima beans was placed in a bag, but was then put in a dark closet. These beans did not receive water, food (sunlight) or air, and were therefore not given a chance to grow or change.

The scientists recorded their hypotheses in their journals- what would the beans look like in a week? Here are some initial photos.

Fish Fotos

Scientists are everywhere! 7th Age learned that one kind of scientist, called a biologist, studies plants and animals. Here is a cool link to a fish biologist who lives in Oregon. She loves taking underwater photographs of salmon and trout swimming upstream.

http://www.npr.org/multimedia/2008/09/river/index.html

The Sixth Sense, acc to 7th Age

What are the five senses?

I asked my 7's scientists this question today. Hands flew up ready to respond. Seeing, hearing, tasting, touching, smelling- right?

Another student's hand shot in the air, giggling. "Mrs. Armstrong!" she yelled, "You forgot one sense!"

Hmm...

(After a quick brain recap) Nope, no senses missing here.

Then coyly laughing she responded, "Your sense of humor!" :)

Hand What?

Today in science we talked about a special tool called a handlens, which we will use throughout the year during various experiments. The girls learned a few basic facts about the handlens:

• The handlens we use in class has two lenses. The lenses help us to magnify an object. The lower lens has a higher magnification.


• We hold a handlens with (duh!) our hands. Please refrain from using the lens around your mouth so you do not spread germs!

We then used the handlens to observe animals in our room. These included a frog, two turtles, two gerbils, and a hamster. The girls recorded their observations in their journals. Here are two groups observing both a hamster and gerbil!

Who is a scientist?

I started this year in my 2nd grade science classes by posing this question: Who is a scientist? Each child had about 10 minutes to draw a sketch of how they pictured a scientist, right down to the clothing and special tools. As you can see, most children drew pictures of "scientists" in labcoats, mixing chemicals; and 9 times out of 10, the scientists drawn were male- Yikes! Yes, there are male chemists out there, but I hoped to dispel the theory that all scientists must wear a labcoat or be a boy.

Each child opened their journals on Day 2 and numbered 1-8 lengthwise. I showed a series of 8 photos of different people (please see below for an upload of the presentation). The students were asked to identify whether YES, (Y) the person(s) was a scientist, or NO (N), the person(s) was not a scientist.

I will set up the presentation shortly so you can take the "pop quiz", too!

Back to School!

Hey all! Today is my first day of school! There are lots of new students here, all of whom I'm excited to get to know as the year progresses. On a side note, yesterday I was in Middle River and just had to photograph this HUGE crab! It's literally LIFE SIZE- on the front of Crab Quarters Restaurant. Looking forward to blogging again soon....