Thomas's Day

Thomas got to be the photographer on Friday. We had been to the zoo on Wednesday and the kids were still talking about all that they had seen. We spent almost the whole day Friday working in groups to plan and design a zoo. It was one of those projects that makes me question my sanity. My first direction was that everyone in the group had to agree about what animals went in their zoo and what the zoo would look like. It's not easy to get a group of 4 kids to agree on anything, much less a whole zoo. But we pressed on throughout the day and I was pleased with the results. So even though the room was a mess, many tears were shed, and I ended the day covered in green paint, I think I will do this again next year. Here's what Thomas had to say:

 The first thing we had to do was make a list of 10 animals to put in our zoo.  We had to agree.

 Next we had to make a plan for our zoo.  All the animals had to have a place to live and there had to be a path through the zoo.

 Mrs. Kyle printed pictures of the animals we choose.

 Then we had to draw the zoo on a big sheet of paper.

The best part was painting.

I'll post pictures of the finished product later.

Cameron Park Zoo

We had so much fun at the zoo.  I wish I could have bottled some of the excitement and energy that was on the bus while we are traveling.  I needed it when we got back.

Thanks to all the parents that went with us and helped with small groups. 

The animals were active and fun to watch.  The group of girls I was with were very impressed with how tall the giraffes were. 

Earth Day Activities

 Today we celebrated Earth Day at school.  We had many volunteers from the community come to help the students with special activities.

 They were able to do leaf rubbings and learn about different types of leaves.

 They also learned about the life cycle of the butterfly.

Easter Party

Sawyer's Day

Sawyer was the photographer one day last week. When we write, we start with our writing notebook. This is where we put ideas for writing. When it's time to write, we find an idea and circle it.

This is during reading stations. Jessica is making a J book.

We also did this during stations. We had to fill in the missing sight word.

We took turns reading to each other. This is Emma reading to me.

Thank you, Sawyer for doing such a great job!

Parents, the paper above is a sight word test. The kids are doing such a great job reading the words that now we will have a test where I say the word and the kids write it down. The words are on the board so they don't have to memorize the spelling. They just have to be able to pick it out and write it down.

I'm also going to be giving them sentences to write. I'm looking for capitals at the beginning, spaces between words and punctuation at the end. They brought this paper home today so you can see how your child did.