This week we continued reading our “I Survived the Chicago Fire” novel and in honor of our gorgeous Chicago Skyline, we created our own cities and tied in multiplication while we were at it! We practiced making arrays, using them as windows for the buildings…
Math- This week we focused on Geometry. We worked on naming shapes by the number of sides and angles, identifying the triangle, quadrilateral, pentagon, and hexagon.
Centers/Choice Time
Math Games- Pig
“I Survived the Great Chicago Fire”
Art- In art class with Ms. Andrea, the students created pottery inspired by our Greek Mythology unit. They then wrote a myth about their creations. We are going to edit their writing and share it with you at conferences in a couple of weeks.
Visiting Ms. Demetra’s Class to see their presentations on Emus and Ostriches…
Multiplicity Lab…
How Many are Missing?
More Math Games… “Fill the Stairs,” “Guess My Number,” and “Guess Odd, Guess Even”
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.
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.
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!
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.
Field Trip to see the “Fractured Fairytales” Play
Presentations by 3-8th graders about the Winter Olympics…
Ms. Stephanie from the Des Plaines Library visited our classroom to read an adorable story about aliens and lead a spaceship craft…
We had a great week in room 120! Here is what we’ve been up to…
This week we read the Greek myth about the attack of the Aloadae. The Aloadae were two giant brothers names Otus and Ephialtes. They were sons of a god, Poseidon, and a mortal woman which made them incredibly strong and fast-growing. Every year they got bigger and more powerful.
As they grew the brothers became arrogant and decided they were strong enough to challenge the Olympian gods themselves. They planned an attack on Olympus by doing something outrageous: they tried to stack mountains on top of each other so that they could climb up to the gods’ home. They also said they would take Hera and Artemis.
At first the gods were alarmed by the brothers’ strength. But the Aloadae had a weakness: they were overconfident and not very wise.
The goddess Artemis tricked them. She turned herself into a deer and ran between the two brothers. As they tried to kill the animal, they threw their spears at the same time and accidentally kiddled each other.
So the attack failed, and the gods remained in control.
The students made dioramas showing a scene from the myth. They also wrote a paragraph explaining the scene they chose to create. Please ask your child to tell you about their scene!
Happy Birthday, Christian! We hope all your wishes come true!
We had a short but busy week. Here is what we’ve been up to…
Math with Ms. Georgia…
We love when Ms. Georgia comes in to teach us new math games or in this case, a new way to play an old game. She took the cards away from our “Sorry” games and gave us 12 sided dice. Instead of drawing cards, we rolled the die and doubled it. It was a great way to practice fast doubles! She also told the students they could make up their own new rules for the game. It was great fun to see the rules each group came up with!
Choice Time/Centers…
Multiplicity Lab…
Greek Mythology…
This week in Greek Mythology we read the following stories…
Daughter of the Seasons – the story of Demeter and Persephone
The Golden Touch- the story of King Midas
Attack of Aloadae
After reading the myth of Demeter, the goddess of agriculture, grain, and harvest, we had a sampling of Greek foods. We tasted olives, chickpeas, hummus, pita bread, grapes, fig, pomegranate seeds, and plums. We also made all of these foods out of clay…
This week we continued our exploration of Greek Mythology by reading the following Greek myths from our book, “Greeking Out”…
Bellerophon and Pegasus
“The Olympians Versus the Titans”
“The Fire the Jar and The Very First Humans”
“The Flying Stallion, A Fearless Mortal, and a Feisty Fly”
Each day we read a new story and practiced retelling the story to the class. A favorite story was Pandora’s Jar. This myth tells of Pandora, the first woman created by the gods. They gave her a beautiful box (sometimes told as a jar) and warned her never to open it. Pandora was very curious. One day she opened the box. Out flew all the bad things in the world–sadness, sickness, anger, jealousy, and pain. They spread everywhere and could not be put back. Pandora quickly closed the box, but it was too late. Only one thing was left inside: hope. So even though the world became full of troubles, people still have hope to help them get through hard times.
In class we each made Pandora’s Box or Jar from clay and decorated them. We then wrote down all of the bad things we would like to see kept inside of Pardora’s box such as anger, jealousy, hatred, greed, fear, revenge. We wrote these words on scrolls. These things feel like they belong in Pandora’s jar because they can harm people or communities if they get loose.
Retelling of the Myths- Prometheus and Pandora
For a center activity we found the coordinates on a grid to make a picture of a boat used in Greek Mythology.
Pegasus Project- We first colored mystery coloring pages and then collaborated with Ms. Lisa’s class to put the “puzzle pieces” together to make one giant poster!
After reading the Myth about Narcissus, we painted beautiful Daffodils! The daffodil is often identified with the narcissus flower that grew where Narcissus died after falling in love with his own reflection.
We had a time getting back into the swing of things after what I hope was a restful break for everyone!
This Week…
We started each day by practicing writing “Mommy e” words on our individual white boards. Mommy e words include words that have an e at the end, helping the second vowel “say its name.” These words include… date, make, cake, name, gate, safe, etc… We also worked on writing “blends” such as black, clock, flag, slow, play. Practicing writing words from Secret Stories is just as important as reading them because it helps children lock in phonics patterns in their brains.
We had DEAR time–Drop Everything and Read– while I read individually with each student. Now that we are back into our regular routine, please listen to your child read the designated pages in their book each night. Depending on their reading level, I will listen to that same passage the next day or will continue on from where they left off. I will also be including a post it note with words that game them trouble. Please have them read those as well.
We had free choice time when the students get to play whichever games they would like to play, or they often engage in art activities at this time. The students have also been making up and acting out their own theatrical plays, which have been fun to watch. While the students free play, I continue listening to them read.
We had a lot of fun playing outside at the zipline park this week. With the warmer temperatures, please keep boots at school so their nice shoes do not get muddy. It also might not be a bad idea to include an extra pair of pants in their backpacks in case they get wet or muddy.
We had Art with Ms. Andrea and the student always enjoy their time creating fun new projects.
Everyday we engage in 10 minutes of the Heggerty Reading Program, the phonological awareness reading program from which every child can benefit. It teaches children to recognize syllables and letter sounds within each syllable. This has been helpful when the students are thinking about spelling words while we write in our journals.
We finished our latest novel, The Chocolate Touch, which had an important messages such as -Too much of a good thing can be bad… John loves chocolate so much that he ignores everything else. When everything he touches turns to chocolate, he quickly realizes that what once made him happy now causes problems. Even things we love should be enjoyed in moderation. Ask you child what they think the overall message was from this novel… (The Chocolate Touch teaches that happiness doesn’t come from getting everything you want-it comes from being thankful, caring about others, and enjoying life in balance.
The students spent some time journaling about what they did over the break. It sounds like everyone had a great time! We also journaled about our first story in Greek Mythology.
Lastly, in math, we wrote five number sentences for the number 78. The students then practiced writing three digit numbers from expanded form to standard form. For example… 900+70+8= 978. We also practiced skip counting and telling time. Lastly, we practiced coloring in and writing fractions.
Ms. Georgia’s Math Games… These include 20/20, Pick Up Sticks, Touchdown, Salute, and 4 in a Row. Students love these card games and their automaticity with solving addition facts is definitely improving!
Fraction Practice…
Wednesday Wonders- Multiplicity Lab
Guiding Questions Included…
What patterns do you see?
How do you see them?
How could you extend this pattern?
What would you add next? Why?
Greek Mythology…
This week we began our new unit of study– Greek Mythology!!
We read the first two Myths from the Usborne book and will begin reading from “Greeking Out” next week. We read “The Wooden Horse” and “The Minotaur”. Please ask your child to retell one of these stories to you. 🙂
The students assignment was to illustrate a scene from “The Wooden Horse” and write about the scene they captured. Teaching Greek Mythology to second/third graders can be very valuable when it’s done in an age-appropriate, engaging way. Here are the key reasons it’s important for young learners…
We had such a festive week! We saw a Christmas play, we performed in the holiday show, drank hot chocolate, decorated gingerbread houses, had a wonderful holiday lunch, and watched Elf on a Shelf! Oh, and we celebrated my 50th birthday together!
Please enjoy highlights from this week!
Centers/ Choice Time
Mazes…
Minecraft Blocks…
Origami…
Hidden Pictures…
King Midas and the Golden Touch Reader’s Theater by Ms. Lisa’s Class
Fieldtrip- A Christmas Carol
Ms. Melissa’s 50th Birthday
Holiday Show…
Making Gingerbread Houses…
Hot Chocolate…
Have a wonderful holiday break! See you in 2026! 🙂
