Players from the Green Bay Blizzard came to school.  They read us some of their favorite stories.  This weekend - Saturday - is the Father Allouez night at the Green Bay Blizzard game.

Phonics - This week we continue to work on vowel teams.  The long o vowel teams are oa - boat, oe - toe, and ow - snow.  Ow is tricky, because it also says ow - plow.  Today we were introduced to our newest vowel teams - ou and oo.  They each have two key word sounds also.  ou - soup and trout.  oo - book and school.

Math - The yellow group is working on adding numbers up to 10 by using the bigger number first and then counting on.  The green group is working on looking at a story problem and figuring out what the question is and where the missing number is.  The red group is making graphs and using data to figure out more / fewer, and other questions.  The blue group is working on telling time on an analog clock.  Each group goes through four rotations every day.  M- Meet with teacher, A-All by myself, T-Technology, H-Hands on.  I bought and made new centers over spring break.  They have been a hit this week!

Reading - We have six different reading groups - reading stories and learning things all at their reading levels!  In April and May we will have one more round of running records - testing reading levels.  Boy have they come a long way since September.  This week our word work focus is homophones - words that sound alike, but are spelled different and mean different thing.  (Ex.  hear, here)  The students have 6 different centers that they can choose from in word work.  The homophone centers have been pretty popular!

Matching homophone word puzzles

Matching homophone words on plastic eggs

The kids LOVE the work on writing center in Daily 5.  A current favorite is story cubes.  There are three cubes.  They have a who, a what, and a where on them.  The students roll them and come up with silly sentences.  They love it!

Brady made a book during work on writing.  Johanna used story cubes.  Look at all those words!

They love to share their writing work and word work after we clean up from daily 5 guided reading groups and centers!

Religion - We have our own Stations of the Cross books.  We have been reading through the 15 Stations and coloring our books.  This week we also learned about Jesus' twelve apostles.  Friday we will read out of our Promise Paper and learn about the Gospel for this weekend - Palm Sunday.

Social Studies - We are learning about the 50 states and their capitals.  Each day that we have social studies we learn three states and capitals in ABC order.  We have a puzzle map on the SMART Board that we fill in as we learn the state and capital.  We also have a book where we learn facts about each state.  So far we are up to 12 states - Alabama, Alaska, Arizona, Arkansas, California, Colorado, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Hawaii, and Idaho.  We are learning the song "Fifty Nifty".

Flat Stanley - We have had three Stanleys come back to us!  We have LOVED getting mail and reading about Stanley's adventures!  Where have the three Stanley's gone?

Green Bay, Wi.

Illinois

Minnesota

Lucy's grandma even made clothes for Stanley.  :)

*Please remember to return report card envelopes.

*Markers - Many of the markers are drying up.  Your student would love if you'd be able to get them some new markers.  :)

Weekly Spelling Lists -

Phonetic List - Vowel Teams - oa, oe, ow
goat
road
croak
foe
toe
flow
crow
now
how
cow

High Frequency List - Trick Words - Words 111-120
man
too
any
day
same
right
look
think
also
around

Today the kids wrote their Flat Stanley letters.  They wrote addresses on their envelopes.  It was a big project...and they tackled it!  The class is so excited to send out their letters and to let their Stanleys begin their journeys!

First we learned about addressing letters.  We learned where to write on the envelope.  We learned that street names, states, and capitals have capital letters.  We learned that there is a comma between the city and the state.  We learned about zip codes.  We learned what the return address is and where we put it on the envelope.

The next step was to address the envelopes and to write the letters to our recipients.

When the letters were finished we needed to fold them and put them into the envelope.  We also had to fold Stanley - we gave him a little hug and then put him in the envelope too.

Here is everyone's Stanley - before Stanley begins his journey.

Joah was on vacation last week.  We had to wait a little longer for his Stanley to get laminated.  :)

Here they are!  All addressed and ready to be mailed!  We can't wait to find out all of Stanley's adventures!

Flat Stanley - This weekend please think about where you would like to send Flat Stanley.  On Monday please send to school the person and address.  Please also send a stamped letter size envelope.  (It's important that the envelope is letter sized.  We will be sending a letter and a laminated Stanley in the envelope.  The students will also be writing addresses - and they tend to write bigger.)  I'd like to address the letters and get them sent off before spring break.  Thank you for your help on this awesome project!

Green Bay Blizzard - Green Bay Blizzard players will be coming to school on Monday.  They will be reading to our K-4 students.  They will sign autographs.  If your child has something they would like autographed they may bring it on Monday.

Dr. Seuss Day - Enjoy a few photos from our day -

Have a great weekend!

Reading - This week we have been celebrating Dr. Seuss!  All of our daily 5 word work and writing centers have something to do with Dr. Seuss.  We have TONS of Dr. Seuss books available in our classroom for read to self and read to someone.  We have been having so much fun learning with Dr. Seuss books.  This Friday, all the classes will come together to celebrate Read Across America Day with DEAR - Drop Everything And Read.

Read to Someone

Word Work - Dr. Seuss word search

Word Work - Assorted centers - The Lorax find the missing code and 

a Green Eggs and Ham cloze activity

Making a waterfall book about Dr. Seuss books

Reading and Writing the room - Finding words that

 start with the letters in The Cat's Hat

Cloze Activity - Finding the missing words in Green Eggs and Ham

Writing - In writer's workshop the students either worked in their writer's workshop notebooks, worked on illustrating their published stories, or worked on Dr. Seuss stories.  The Dr. Seuss stories are awesome!  There were three choices - write and illustrate how you would get rid of the cat in the hat if he came to your house, write like Sam-I-Am in Green Eggs and Ham - but write what you would eat - and make it rhyme, or write rhyming words of where you will read.  I'll have to get some pictures tomorrow.  They really are fantastic!

Math - Our math groups are working hard as always!  It is amazing what we accomplish every day!  The yellow group is working on counting on.  They are underlining the bigger number and putting dots above the smaller number to remind them how to count on.  The green group is working on figuring out the missing addend.  Then they are using circle drawings to show the equation - and then matching the drawings to the equations.  The red group finished up their unit yesterday.  They are working on story problems, figuring out which number is missing in the story problem, story problems with three numbers, and making a ten to find the answer.  The blue group is working on comparison bars.  They read the story problem, figure out who has more/less, plug in the numbers, and figure out the missing number.  

 Working on spider addition in the hands on center.  The spider

body has a number.  The students need to find 8 legs that have

the 8 equations that match the number on the body.

Last Friday we had a math game day.  Each group worked on a game with an adult helper.

The yellow group played Sequence Dice with Miss Jan.

The green group played Uno with Mrs. Curran

 The red group played Yahtzee with Ms. Mac

The blue group was learning how to play cribbage with me.

Religion - Each day we talk about our Lenten journey as we color each day on our Lenten path.  Tomorrow we will be "counting our blessings" and writing things we are blessed with / thankful for on shamrocks.  Friday we will learn about the Sunday Gospel in our Promise Paper.

Read - Aloud - We just finished reading Flat Stanley  Today we made our own Stanleys.  A letter went home today to tell you about our Flate Stanley project.  We are going to send our Stanleys in the mail to someone.  (That's how Stanley traveled in the book.)  (The students can send Stanley to grandmas and grandpas, aunts and uncles, cousins, friends, etc.)The person we send Stanley to is going to write about their adventures with Stanley, take some pictures, and then return Stanley, a letter, and the pictures to us.  We need help your help.  Please decide who you would like to send Stanley to .  Please write their address on the back of the sheet that went home today.  Then send the sheet back to school.  Please also send a stamped letter sized envelope.  Do not write on the envelope - the students will be learning how to address envelopes.  I'd like to write the letters / address the envelopes next week before spring break.  Please send your address/envelopes by Monday, March 5th.

I've done this project twice with a class.  It has been so much fun!  Our Stanleys have gone to Canada, England, Afghanistan, Ireland, Hawaii, Germany, Wyoming, Arizona, California, Florida, Washington D.C, New York, etc.  When the Stanleys come back - we put them on the Stanley map - and we learn where that place is.  We learn a little something about that place.  People send us back letters and pictures - and sometimes people have sent us more.  We've received post cards and travel brochures from where Stanley was, a special candy from Colorado, and other trinkets / goodies from where Stanley has traveled.  The students so look forward to getting their Stanleys back in the mail, opening the packages, reading the letters, and sharing with the class.

Working on Flat Stanley

Today we had a great time at Osprey Point!  We got to learn some fun nature songs from our preschool friends!  We hiked out to the big tree.  We learned about our next Einstein Kit - organisms.  We learned that organisms are living things.  We discussed some living things that we were seeing.  We saw the trees, moss, geese, and ducks.  We heard cardinals, but we didn't see them.  We saw deer tracks - and poop.  :)  We talked about how we are in their territory - their habitat.  Then we made some shelters for the animals out of sticks.

Today in writer's workshop we celebrated one of our volunteers - Mrs. Johnson.  Her birthday is this week.  We made her a book, sang happy birthday, and celebrated with some yummy chocolate chip cookies.  Here's what Brady has to say about cookies...