Cause and Effect Stations

Today the students rotated through different stations writing either a cause or effect on a piece of chart paper. I wrote a cause or effect on the top, and the students had to come up with a possible cause or effect that would go with it. We played music while they wrote and when the music stopped, they put their caps on their markers and froze. Then they switched and the music came back on and they wrote again. It was really fun!

Proactive Choices and Their Effects

This week we have been talking about cause and effect. We watched some Christmas movies, read some books, and watched some PowerPoints and determined the cause and effect. The students have also been playing games with cards and matching up the cause with the effect. Today we talked about different ways we could be proactive in life, not only in the classroom, and the good effects that come out of those choices. The students worked in partners and wrote a proactive choice on the green strip and the good effect that comes out of that choice on the red strip. We made a proactive chain to decorate our classroom with. The students will continue to add to this chain throughout this year. Whenever they make a proactive choice that results in a positive effect, they will write it down and add it to our chain. We are trying to make it really long to show how proactive we are! We will start a new chain in January. :)

I Spy Arrays!

The kids went on an 'I Spy' hunt for arrays and recorded what they found on their recording sheet.

Winter Wonderland

Today we made snowflakes and put fact families on them. We decorated our classroom with them and created a winter wonderland! It looks amazing. The kids have decided that we would keep something hanging from the ceiling at all times throughout the year. Butterflies, rain drops, flowers. They're so creative!

Mouse Traps!

We have been studying force and motion. The kids made 'Mouse Traps' of their own. Remember that awesome game?! We looked at the game, then the kiddos made their own. They had specific criteria they had to follow. One rough surface, 2 ramps, one curved surface, and a tunnel. The objective was to see whose group could get their ball through their maze the quickest. They did amazing jobs! We tested them today but didn't have enough time to actually discuss the factors that influenced balls going fast or slow. Here are some pictures of them constructing their mouse traps/ mazes. I'll post pictures of their final products tomorrow. They made some AWESOME mazes!

Multiplication Madness!

This week have been learning about multiplication. Yesterday we played with skittles and made 'groups' and 'arrays'. After that, we made multiplication mushrooms (that I will post tomorrow) that came out awesome and colorful! Today we learned how multiplication relates to repeated addition. The kiddos came up with their own word problem, wrote the repeated addition sentence, and the multiplication sentence. We shared them as a class and stuck them on our little chart. After this, I read 'If You Give A Cat A Cupcake' and the students made a cat with cupcakes and sprinkles. I will take pictures and post these tomorrow as well. Here are some pictures from this week!

Making Inferences

This week we have been learning about making inferences and how you use your schema (background knowledge) and clues from the text to make an inference. Today we read a story about Tim and his Grandma Sue. The students used magnifying glasses to look through their 'snowy case file' for evidence on what Tim and his Grandma Sue did on their snowy day. They made inferences about what they did and when by discussing the evidence within their group. We came together as a whole class and discussed the evidence and how it related to each other. Tomorrow we will make a timeline on what we think Tim and Grandma Sue did throughout their entire snowy day!

Measuring and crashing cars with force!

The students experimented with force and motion some more today. They measured 30 cm from a wall, illustrated it, then drew what happened when the hot wheels car crashes into the wall. They discussed the force, motion and how each affected what they observed. Then the measure a specific distance and crashes two cars into each other. They observed this and then recorded what happened. They had a blast!