Five kids from our middle group of students have taken part in a social studies class on the Thirteen Colonies and American Revolution. They began the unit individually by researching explorers who traveled to the new world. As a class, they began researching the colonies of New York and Virginia. A large focus of class Read More >>
Archives for April 2015
Multiplication
In late March children in grades 2 and 3 started a Multiplication unit and how it is just another word for repeated addition. Children worked on highlighting the multiples of 2’s, 3’s, 4’s on a hundred’s chart. Quickly children were able to see the patterns. For example they noticed that on the x 2 page Read More >>
War Horse Book Club
A small group of fourth and fifth graders decided, after reading four short novels by Mildred Taylor that they wanted to continue with the book club and read another book together. They all voted to read the book at home. And so I selected a favorite book, War Horse by a favorite author, Michael Morpurgo. Read More >>
Take a Peek at How We Spend Our Days!
Click on any photo to get a closer look. Then, to access the forward and back slideshow buttons, hover your mouse on the right or left side of the enlarged photo. After you look, visit our photo stream on Flickr and enjoy even more photos!
Dictation
Students in dictation class have been focusing on reading and spelling words that follow the vowel-consonant-e pattern and comparing them with words that follow the consonant-vowel-consonant pattern. Students sort, compare, read, and write words and sentences using words with these patterns. We have emphasized spelling patterns for certain consonant sounds at the ends of these types of words. For example, Read More >>
Fox Book Club
Some of our younger students have been participating in their first book club. We have been reading several of the Fox books by Edward Marshall, including Fox On Wheels, Fox and His Friends, Fox On the Job, Fox Be Nimble, Fox On Stage, and Fox Outfoxed. Each book is divided into three chapters, each a humorous story about Fox and his family, friends, Read More >>
Variables
Our two 7th graders and one 5th grader have taken a journey into pre-algebra this year. This class has been called Variables all year, but we have explored so much more than just variables. One thing that is constant is that there is often an “unknown” or “x” in most of our work, so the name “Variables” has stuck! Even Read More >>
Heating and Cooling
The youngest group of students have taken part in a science class on Heating and Cooling. They started the unit by discussing what hot, cold and temperature meant. They classified their findings on a Venn Diagram. The students were introduced to thermometers and practiced using them by taking the temperature of their fist, the room Read More >>
Government
In January the oldest students started a “Government” unit. For three-months we have studied the needs and rights of individuals, the rights of a community and different forms of government in existence today. Children were first asked to bring in a newspaper article describing some aspect of government. The diversity of topics, from Speaker Sheldon Read More >>
Explorers
Students in grades K-2 started a social students unit this fall on explorers. Students were first asked to explain the difference between an Explorer and Exploring and came up with statements such as: Explore means to look for things and Explorer is something or someone that discovers things; Explore means to find things and Explorer is someone that Read More >>