Pirate Day Adventures

Argh!  We had such a great "Talk Like a Pirate Day" on Monday.  Our whole wing, 1st and 2nd grades, dressed up to celebrate.  Click here to learn the history of "Talk Like a Pirate Day."  We had fun, pirate-y learning going on all day.  The day began by choosing pirate names.  They were pretty silly.  The students had new names like Big Buckle Charlie and Fearsome Pegleg Patsy.  Some students put their pirate name on all their papers!  Ha!  It sure made correcting papers a little more interesting!

In math, we counted and tallied pirate objects. Then we had to use those numbers to solve addition and subtraction problems.  The children worked cooperatively in pairs. They understood how to work as a crew!  We also had a crab race relay.  The relay had us moving and practicing our math facts.  We needed the answers from the math facts to decode a secret pirate message leading to a treasure hunt clue.  More on that later in this post. Another pirate-y math activity we did was a cannonball toss.  The students tossed a cannon ball (a black balloon filled with rice) back and forth.  Each pass they had to say a number in the sequence we were practicing.  Some students were practicing counting backwards from 100, some practiced counting by 10's and 5's, some were even skip counting backwards from target numbers given by the captain.  Yo, ho, ho!

 

Later, we folded some pirate hats and learned about the "ar" chunk.  We filled our hats with "ar" words and practiced reading and spelling all the words. Then, we tested our ability to read "ar" words with a Q-arrrrr hunt.  In the QR hunt, the students scanned QR codes with their ipads.  The QR code revealed a word.  Students had to read the word and find the picture of the word.  When they found the picture, there was another QR code.  The students completed the series of clues on the first try!  They were an awesome crew!



Toward the end of the day....we found a secret clue!  We had to follow a series of different clues to hunt for treasure.  The first clue described one of our classroom graphs in the hallway.  When we looked behind the graph, we found another clue.  Inside the clue back was a series of numbers.  We had to have our crab relay races, then the answers to those math problems revealed letters for the message.

The  message told us our next clue was outside the counselor's door.  There we found another clue that could only be revealed if we painted on it with sea water.  That secret message sent us to Mrs. Crum.  She had a clue that was a puzzle.  The puzzle sent us to the nonfiction section of the library where pirate books could be found.

The students who checked the library found a treasure box!  Inside was gold for everyone!!  What a grand adventure.

At the end of the day, we had a little more fun with a cannon ball fight.  I just adore this crew!

Shiver me timbers!  This is a long post and I still wasn't able to include it all!  I have even more photos! Our day was filled with learning and fun.  We read all sorts of wonderful pirate books, made a pirate graph, played new pirate apps, and all sorts of interesting things.  There are two great pirate apps, one for spelling and one for math.  Check out Pirates Love to Count and Pirates Love to Read in the App store.  Click on the names of the apps to find more information.  Yo, ho, ho!

Shell Science

Continuing with a focus on what scientist do, we did some shell science this week.  We discussed that scientists use different tools to study the world around them.  One important tool is a magnifying glass and another....paper and pencil!  We used magnifying glasses and our science notebooks to record our observations about seashells.  The scientist were really noticing the details.  In reading, we have been talking about features of nonfiction. One feature we have discussed is labels.  Writing the labels was also a great opportunity to practice segmenting sounds like we have been in phonics. Look at all their hard work!

Another free scrapbook by Smilebox

Aquatic Ed-Ventures

We have been using the ocean theme to learn and practice tons of different reading foundational skills.  The children are loving the fiction and nonfiction books shared during read aloud.  For vocabulary, we learned the word aquatic.  Aquatic means living in or happening in the water.  See if your child can give you some examples and non examples of aquatic.  Here is one smart second grader's picture of aquatic in his vocabulary notebook. The students also used our aquatic books to do some list writing.

In first grade, we also used the aquatic theme to practice an important phonics and spelling skill.  When writers come to tricky words they don't know how to spell, they need to be able to segment the word into the sounds.  We learned a strategy called push and say.  In this strategy, we use the length of our arm to tap out how many sounds are in a word.  For instance, fish has three sounds: /f/- /i/- /sh/.



After we figure out how many sounds in the word, we make that many boxes.  Then, the writers figure out what letters to add to the boxes.  Watch this awesome speller segment the sounds of shell and push the letters to the correct boxes.



After we practiced segmenting and pushing up several different words together, the students set to work independently.  The children had to pick four different aquatic animals to segment and spell.  The students were excellent and hearing the sounds in words.  Last, but not least, we published our own books about Aquatic Animals.  We used the tricky words that we figured out how to spell in our books.  Besides practicing segmenting tricky words, the students also got practice writing sentences.  Students had to remember to begin sentences with a capital letter, use spaces between words, and end with proper punctuation.  What fantastic writers!

Second graders have also been experiencing some "Aquatic Ed-ventures" in writing.  Their task has been to create an informational poster based on research of an aquatic animal of their choosing.  We have gotten articles from World Book, an online encyclopedia Eagle Cliffs students have access to.  See the menu button bar at the top of the blog to access this resource at home. We have also checked out nonfiction books from libraries all around town to collect information on their unique animal choices.  Thanks so much for the extra help, Mrs. Jensen.  So far, the students have researched their animals and taken notes in a fact file.


The students also practiced writing interesting leads for their pieces.  We learned three different types of leads: a statement, a question, or an exclamation.  Check out a couple examples.
Zap!  Look out for the stingray.  A stingray's zap can be as poisonous as a snakebite.
What floats, stings, and has no bones or heart?  It's a jellyfish!
I just can't wait to read the rest of their pieces.  In this project, besides research and writing, the students have to include five nonfiction text features.  So far, we have photos, captions, and a headline. We also decided to add a diagram.  To make their diagrams, the student used the iPad and the app Osmo Masterpiece to draw their animals.  The drawings are spectacular.  We will finish labeling our diagrams, writing our facts, and putting it all together on the poster this next week.  Stay tuned.