Spring Break

 Our last day before spring break was full....full of birthdays, bunnies, and biographies!  The half day flew by!  First, we had a cute pet bunny visit in the morning!

The students did some reading and then created a cute bunny directed draw and painting.  They all turned out adorable. 



We also headed down to the gym to see the 3rd and 4th grade hero fair.  The students did an amazing job presenting their research.  Our combo students visited the presentations.  They had a 3-2-1 recording sheet as they visited the projects.  They had to write three facts, name two people they were interested in learning more about, and write one question they still have.  Thank you third and fourth grade for all your hard work!



Plus, today we had two birthdays to celebrate!  It was a fantastically full, half day of school.  Enjoy your spring break with your family!  We will see you again Tuesday, April 18th!

We Are the Champions!

We did it!  The children worked so incredibly hard and we are soooooooo proud of winning the trophy!  The Read-A-Thon results are in! The students were honored at an assembly. Every child reaching the 300 minute goal received a free dinner from Outback. Our class had ALL 15 students that accomplished the 300 minute goal. Also, the top three readers from each grade level got a medal. The top three fundraisers from kindergarten-second also won a medal. We had two medal winners in our room!

 
The Connected Combo read over 8000 minutes outside of class during our 10 day Read-A-Thon!  How amazing! Even better, the students have shown impressive level gains that you saw on our third quarter report cards.  Way to go! Our primary students earned enough money for RazKids and Reading Rainbow subscriptions kindergarten through third grade!  We will also be purchasing new nonfiction books for the library.  Thank you for your incredible support of our young readers.  

Student Led Conferences

Student Led conferences were a huge success. The children were so proud of themselves. They loved sharing their learning with you. I thought they made excellent presenters. Thanks for your wonderful support. The feedback on the reflection sheets was very helpful. Thank you for being so incredibly positive. Most parents favored the math station. Many of you were impressed not only with the mastery of our current math objectives, but also the students' ability to effectively use our interactive projector. Yes, they are super stars!  One of my favorite stations to listen in on was the self evaluations.  The students were so honest with what they are doing well and the areas that they can use some more practice.  These powerful conferences were a great way to end third quarter and begin this last important quarter of the 2016-2017 school year.

March Book Madness

We did a March Madness with book battles to coincide with the NCAA basketball tournament.  Last Friday was our championship book battle, but the brackets began at the beginning of the month with the Sweet 16.  The Sweet 16 match ups included: The Important Book vs Picky Mrs. Pickle, Mother Bruce vs Bullfrog Pops , Those Shoes vs Thunder Boy , Mr. Peabody's Apples vs Peanut Butter and Cupcake, The Incredible Book Eating Boy vs The Fantastic Flying Books of Morris Lessmore, Little Red Writing vs The Plot Chickens, Nadia, The Girl Who Couldn't Sit Still vs The Darkest Dark, and Now and Ben vs I Dissent. We would read each book and then take a vote on the favorite.  From these match ups, we got an Elite 8.

March Book Madness on PhotoPeach

 With 8 books in the running we opened up voting to the all kindergarten through second grade students.  Again, each classroom would read both books and take votes.  With about 200 kids now participating and voting, it took a little longer, but we soon had a Final Four.  We announced the final four in an "Oscar like" assembly.  We even had the music. The book winners were sealed in an envelope and students were chosen to come up and make the important winning announcements.  You should have heard the students cheering wildly for their favorite books!  So awesome!

 

The final four included Nadia, The Girl Who Couldn't Sit Still vs I Dissent and Picky Mrs. Pickle vs Peanut Butter and a Cupcake.  In this third read of the books students were becoming very attached to their favorites.  Here is our table of the voting.  There were definitely two clear winners for "The Game."

 

We all gathered together for the reading of the final game! Mrs. Jensen read Peanut Butter and Cupcake.  Mrs. Wolverton read Nadia, The Girl Who Couldn't Sit Still . It was so exciting that via Twitter,  the one and only Nadia Comaneci, Olympic gold medalist, and the author of her book Karlin Gray tweeted our class!  How amazing is that?!  We even got so see a first draft of Ms. Gray's book.

   

After a huge vote and lots of adding, the results were in......drum roll.....the 2017 book of the year......

 

 

Thank you, Ms. Gray for not only writing our favorite book in the tournament but also for reaching out to our students.  We just love the #readinglikechampions! 

Money, Money, Money

We are continuing to practice, practice, practice counting coins and solving problems involving money.  This week we used the Chromebook lab and this list on the blog to practice with online interactive games.   The students worked very hard.  You can access any of these learning games from home by clicking on the links.  The children already know their favorites!

 1. Money Sort

2. Counting Money

3. Enough Money

4. Count the Amount

5. Feed the Dolphin

6. Fruit Shoot 

Not only do we use computers and iPads to practice counting coins, we also use manipulatives.  One example of a game the students love is called race to a quarter.  This is a game students can play at home.  To play, you will need a di and many pennies, nickels, and dimes.  Players take turns rolling the di and taking that many pennies.  When students have enough pennies to trade for a nickel, they can make the exchange.  Further, when a player has two nickels,  he/she exchanges for a dime.  Play continues until a player gets a quarter.  For second graders and first graders ready for a challenge, the game can be extended to race to a dollar. 

We have had all sorts of games to help us with identifying and counting coins. Of course, the best way to practice counting coins...is to practice counting coins.  The students love to use real money!  First graders should be able to identify pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters and count amounts up to 25 cents.  However, I find these students love a challenge.  We have been counting MUCH higher than 25 cents.  Second graders solve word problems involving money. We also have been working on making change for a dollar.

 

Another activity we did to was making words with a coin code.  We used this coin code to show coins that represent each letter.  Then we would spell words, match the coins, and count the amount. Students even found the worth of their first and last names. Then, the children uploaded a photo of their coin name to their digital portfolios in the app SeeSaw.  With the photos on SeeSaw, the students could compare the value of their name to their classmates. You can try out this activity at home.  Who's name is worth the most in your family?