A few updates. . .

So I have figured out that I am only able to blog/blogstalk during the wee hours of 2:30 and 5:00 a.m.  My school computer has been acting up when it comes to blogs, and of course from the moment I get home from school my attention, time, and energy are focused elsewhere!

Last week Sol insisted on wearing one of my vests.  Finally I decided to just let him wear it around the house!  Christian had on a gray one, but he was too busy flying through the air like a "superhero" to let me get a picture of him!

O.k. first things first.  So we had a fun little "reveal" party last weekend with family and friends.  I cut the cake first then we watched my 3D/4D sonogram dvd to check out our new addition.  

It's a BOY. . .and he wasn't one bit shy!  We're not sure about names yet, but we have a few in mind.  

If you haven't checked in at Kohl's in a while, they have a great new selection of books by.  

You can get more information here.

Last week we finished up our graphing unit, and I tried a few new things.  .  .

I dumped the m&m's into a baggie so that I could assess a few things without m&m's flying all over the room.  

I checked out sorting. . .

counting. . .

 and graphing. 

The students also had the chance to create their own pie graph. 

Here are a few pictures of some graphs/charts that the students worked on in small groups.  They surveyed the class, analyzed the information, and recorded it in the form of a bar graph, pie graph, or picture graph.

  

We read "Sam's Sandwich."  In this story Sam puts just about "everything" on a sandwich that he's making for his little sister.  Each student voted on their favorite kind of sandwich.

My class also worked really hard to write reports about Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.  I was so proud of all of the information that they learned and how sensitive they were in response to the class discussion and literature.

brown egg

white egg

inside they look just the same. . .

I love this TLC project.  You can find the instructions here.  It's a link on Little Giraffe's.

Have you ever taught a topic so much that you dreamt about it?  Well, we studied "rocks" and "soil" for about four weeks!  The reason we stayed on the subject so long is because we teach science and social studies every day.  So instead of going back and forth between the two of them, we spend about 20-30 minutes on both of them every day.  One of my teammates used to be part of a land judging contest so she is very very very knowledgeable about topsoil, clay, sand, silt, pebbles, and just about anything else that has to do with rocks!  I tried to keep it interesting for my kiddos. . .here are a few of my favorite activities.

Every day we shook this tennis ball container with cookies in it to show the process of "weathering" and "erosion."  I didn't do a good job of taking pictures along the way, but little by little we could see the transformation from "rocks" to "soil."

We made some snowman "sand" art pictures and brainstormed the *many uses of rocks!

And of course. . .after studying rocks and soil for all that time we deserved a treat, so we made dirt cups!  The class enjoyed eating them while watching "Magic School Bus Rocks and Rolls."  I wish I had a magic school bus!

That's all for now. . .happy teaching!