Connor Prairie Field Trip Part 1

Last Friday we went on our first field trip of the year to Connor Prairie. We had a beautiful day and everyone had a great time! Here are some pictures that I took. I apologize that I did not get pictures of a wide variety of students. Every field trip this happens, I get lots of pictures of the same kids because we end up being at the same places at the same time. So, please forgive me if you don't see yourself.


And were off! Here we are riding the bus to Connor Prairie.

This was really cool. These are seeds from a plant called a puff of love. The plant has these puffball like sacks on it. Inside the sacks are seeds, and on each seed is a heart. If you look real close, you can see the cream colored heart on the brown seed. I got a couple of seeds and I am going to try and plant them. We will see if Mrs. Crull can actually make something grow from "scratch"! :)

This is Chloe, her mom and Jade petting a calf. This year they had a lot of people and things out for us to see and do.


Here is Gabby looking at the cute baby chicks.

Connor Prairie Field Trip Part 2

Here are Tyler and Jade "riding" a horse.

Angelina, Sydney and Evan in the candle dipping area and Ryan and Evan deciding where to go next.

Lunch Time!
Angelina brought cookies for everyone. Thank you Angelina!!! ;)

Connor Prairie Field Trip Part 3

Here are Evan and Ryan pumping up water from a well.

Thanks to Chloe's mom, I have this "wonderful" picture of me walking on the stilts. ;) Actually, when I was in 5th grade, I had to walk on stilts for a school play that I was in. I remember practicing all the time on them so that I wouldn't fall during the play.

Tug-a-war anyone? Jade, Chloe, Evan and Ryan were up for the challenge!

The field trip is over and we're ready to go back to school...or maybe not. :)


For those of you who were wondering what we did in class after we got back from the field trip...a whole lot of nothing. We just enjoyed being a small class of 11 kids! It was really nice and quiet!

Bubble Gum Graphs

Today we did one of my favorite activities that we do during the year. We picked our favorite bubble gum flavor, made a graph with this information and then solved problems about the information on our graph. We also blew a few bubbles. :)

Here are some of our best bubbles. Can you find Mrs. Crull? ;)



Here are the results of our bubble gum flavor poll.

Original - 2
Watermelon - 3
Sour Mania - 5
Strawberry - 4
Island Punch - 6

More Picture Day Pictures

These pictures are my attempt to be "artsy". :) I thought they turned out pretty cool.


These are Gabby's new shoes. I thought they were SO cool!!! This picture was taken while she was getting her picture taken.




Right before we left to go back to the room, I looked at the kids standing by the wall and thought their feet looked really cool all lined up. It actually took awhile to get them to look like this (you know...second graders move around a bit!), but the picture turned out cool in the end!

Picture Day!

Today was PICTURE DAY! Here are some pictures that I took today. :)


Look are our beautiful young ladies and handsome young men. :) They look so nice!

Here they are practicing their smiles while they waited patiently for their turn.

Noah's ready!

Matthew T. and Angelina are being posed by our photographer. Matthew...you forgot to put your teeth in for your picture! ;)

Star Spelling and Star Handwriting 9-19-08

Every Friday we have a spelling test. I take 4 grades on this one test. I take a spelling test grade, a dictation grade, a spelling test handwriting grade, and a dictation handwriting grade. To help encourage the students to do their very best, I keep a list on the board of those students who have "Star Spelling" and "Star Handwriting". To be on the "Star Spelling" list, a student needs to get 100% on their spelling test (just the front, not the dictation part). To be on the "Star Handwriting" list, a student needs to get an E on their handwriting on their spelling test (only the front of the test, not the back). An E stands for "Excellent", and is like getting an A on their handwriting. I had planned on listing these outstanding students on the blog each week, but I am just now getting around to it. :)

September 19, 2008

STAR SPELLING
Claire
Chloe
Sydney
Corie
Angelina
Emma
Matthew K.
Cameron
Matthew T.

STAR HANDWRITING
Allie
Chloe
Sydney
Corie
Emma
Evan

Last week I talked to the students a lot about trying hard to use their very best handwriting on all their work. We talked about how your handwriting is a reflection of you. I am very proud of all the students and how much their handwriting improved over the past week! Let's keep up the good work!!! :)

Testing and Masks

The end of this week at school was a little crazy. All day Thursday and Friday we had someone pulling the kids out to do two reading tests. The first test was the Diebels test that they have been doing since kindergarten. The second test was a new test that figures out the reading level of each child. This test takes a long time to administer because the students have to keep on reading passages and answering questions until it gets too hard for them.

Since I had so many students coming and going, we couldn't really do a lot. So, on Friday afternoon we decided to do an art project. It actually started out being something totally different, but as the kids started cutting their paper, we all noticed that they looked like faces. The more I looked at them, the more I thought they looked like Aztec or Mayan tribal masks. So, I looked online to show the kids what one of these masks looked like, and challenged them to try and make their picture into a tribal mask. They all seemed to enjoy this last minute art project. They also enjoyed trying to make mustache's for themselves to wear with the scraps. :)

Here are four pictures that I thought turned out great!

By Evan

By Gabby

By Claire

By Matthew T.

By Noah

Tongue Twisters

This week we wrote tongue twisters. We started by reviewing blends, then I gave the kids a sheet to work with to write six tongue twisters. I chose six blends and made word banks that included words that started with each blend. This activity always ends up being harder than the kids expect. I reminded them that the key to a tongue twister is to make sure most of your words start with the same blend. When they use a lot of "filler words" that do not start with the same blend, it isn't a tongue twister anymore. I then had them choose their favorite tongue twister, rewrite it and draw a picture to go along with it.

Here are four students that I thought did a great job on their tongue twister and picture.

Here are the rest of our classes terrific tongue twisters! :)

Brad's brother Brian brushed Brooke's nice brown braid.
-Claire-

Drew dragon dreamed of wearing a dress.
-Matthew T.-

Brooke brought brown bread.
-Allie-

Brooke had brown bright braided hair. Brick brought broccoli.
-Angelina-

Drake drank a dry drink.
-Sydney-

Stubborn Stephanie stood like a statue.
-Emma-

Stubborn Stewart stepped onto the stage.
-Ryan-

Slick the seal can slap and slip.
-Gabby-

Clever Clayton closing the closet.
-Corie-

Brad Brooke brought brown broccoli bread.
-Matthew K.-

Drake dragged a dry drooly dragon wearing a dress!
-Jade-

A fly flew into Flo's flavored ice cream.
-Noah-

Drake's drill drip dried.
-Megan-

A Few Pictures of the Kiddos! :)

Here are some pictures that I have taken in class over the last couple of weeks. If you don't see yourself, I promise to get everyone's picture on here! :)

Silly picture from the first day of school.

Corie and Gabby's tanagram creation.

Matthew K. reading in his favorite spot. ;) Matthew, I hadn't realized until now that you do seem to always be reading in this same spot in the room. :)

Chloe, Cameron and Angelina taking Reading Counts quizzes. The kids are doing an AWESOME job reading books and passing Reading Counts quizzes on their books! Keep up the good work! :)

Gabby, Sydney, Megan and Jade reading during DEAR (Drop Everything And Read) time.

These pictures are of kids working on their centers.

Sydney

Ms. Kost and Jacob

Ryan

Kid's Work

Here are the two things that I have up outside our room. The first is an "apple glyph" that we did. A glyph is a picture that is made by answering a series of questions. Some of the questions for the apple glyph were, "If you are a girl, color the apple red; and if you are a boy, color the apple yellow" or "If you like pizza, color the pencil's eraser pink; and if you do not like pizza, color the eraser yellow".

Here are tall he "Marvelous Maps" the students created. :)