Week 25 (February 23-27)

Good evening, room 120 families and friends!

We are excited to share that we have begun a new exploration in class! Our learning journey started with a chapter book titled “I Survived…The Great Chicago Fire, 1871, which introduces students to an important moment in history through engaging storytelling.

Along with our reading, we are learning more about the city of Chicago. Students are exploring the symbolism found in the Chicago flag and discovering what the stars and stripes represents. We have also been viewing slides showcasing Chicago’s famous buildings and unique architecture, helping students see how history, design, and culture come together to shape the city.

Comprehension Questions about I Survived…

Journaling…

If I could have any animal as a pet, I would have…

The best day ever would be…

When I grow up, I want to be…

One morning I opened the door and saw a box. Inside it was a…

Lent…

Centers/ Choice Time

Drop Everything And Read…

Math…

Learning how to fill out a Venn Diagram…

Math Games…

Listening and reading along to stories on the I Pads…

Learning about greater than and less than comparison symbols by drawing a monster who wants to eat the greater of the two numbers…

Our Dream Gardens…

Our entire school participated in Read for the Record, a national initiative that encourages kids and adults to read together. We read the book “See Marcus Grow” and then dreamt of the gardens we would like to grow one day.

Multiplicity Lab

Recess…

Have a great weekend!!

Love,
Ms. Melissa

Week 24 (February 17-20)

We finished our book, “Greeking Out” this week and had a celebratory discussion with donuts. We went around the circle and shared our favorite Greek myth and told why it stands out to us. The students loved these stories about gods, heroes, monsters, and magical creatures. Their favorite characters were…

Zues- ruler of the gods
Athena- goddess of wisdom
Heracles- the super strong hero
Pegasus-the flying horse

The action and drama made reading feel like watching a fantasy movie in your hear.

Stories read this week…

Arachne the Weaver
The Moon Falls in Love
The Giant Problem
Till Death do us Part and Then Some

Journaling…

Where is your favorite place to go and why?

Write about a time you laughed really hard…

Multiplicity Lab…

Choice Time/ Centers…

Practicing Yoga

Building a Robot…

Building a House…

Designing a Chess Board…

Holding Marshmallow…

Our trip to the Des Plaines Library…

Math Games…

This week in math we introduced more graph types that help them organize and understand data. These graphs focus on counting, comparing, and answering basic questions. The graphs we explored include picture graphs, bar graphs, tally charts, and line plots. We learned the following skills- Reading titles and labels, counting accurately, comparing categories, answering word problems, and explaining their thinking.

Chess Class…

Have a great weekend!

Love,

Ms. Melissa

Week 23 (February 10-13)

Happy Valentine’s Day! This week we had a wonderful time learning and celebrating together. We read more Greek myths and discovered heroes, gods, and adventures. We spent time writing in our journals and sharing our ideas, and we practiced our skills be playing fun math games. To celebrate Valentine’s Day, we enjoyed pizza, exchanged cards, and played games together- like their favorite “Heads Up 7 Up.” It was a week full of learning, creativity, and fun!

Valentine’s Day Fun!

Happy 1st Birthday, Marshmallow!!

Candy Hearts Graph-

Morning Journaling…

Heart Art…

Valentine’s Day Word Search…

Crack the Valentine’s Day Code…

Math Games…

Making Posters for our Olympic Celebration

Making Mail Boxes for Valentines…

Watching Ms. Anna feed our snake, Cornflake!

Watching our daily Heggerty reading program…

Have a nice and relaxing long weekend!!

Love,

Ms. Melissa

Week 22 (February 2-6)

Hello, families and friends!

We had a busy and exciting week in our classroom! We celebrated the 100th day of school on Friday and with that we were excited about the fun challenges that went with it! In teams we put together 100 piece puzzles, licked our tootsie pop 100 times to see if we could get to the center, assembled Lego structures using 100 pieces, filled out a 100 Day fun packet with mazes and word searches, and of course completed Day 100 in our math journals- (5 number sentences that equal 100).

Oh- and we had a dance party while putting together puzzles… 🙂

On Friday we also came together for a special all-school opening ceremony in honor of the Winter Olympics, which was a great way to build school spirit and learn about teamwork and perseverance. Our class chose to represent Argentina. Argentina will compete in events like slalom, giant slalom, and other downhill races, cross country skiing, and Luge.

In reading, we continued enjoying more myths from our Greeking Out book- students are especially lovingthe stories- especially the ones with monsters.

Greek mythology is packed with wild monsters. Here are some famous ones that have popped up in our stories.

Medusa- A Gorgon with snakes for hair; anyone who looked at her turned to stone.

Minotaur- Half man, half bull, trapped in the Labyrinth on Crete.

Hydra- A many headed serpent; when one head was cut off, more grew back.

Cerberus- A three-headed dog that guarded the entrance to the Underworld.

Chimera- A fire-breathing creature made of parts of a lion, goat, and snake.

The students drew their own monster and wrote a creative writing piece about that creature…

We had a great time creating our own Mythical, Magical Monsters…

Researching Mythical Monsters

Drawing and Coloring our Monsters…

Centers/ Choice Time

Presenting our Dioramas

Multiplicity Lab

In math, we practiced measurement using both centimeters and inches on a ruler, and we also learned about perimeter by adding the side lengths of different shapes.