Weather Watchers

Meet "Pickles," our classroom groundhog. He did see his shadow, here in Colorado, on February 2, 2013. That means six more weeks of winter. OH NO!

We do hope that Punxsutawney Phil's prediction of an early spring is correct. We will track and record the weather for six weeks to determine if the groundhog is a good predictor of the weather.

Today the children wrote whether they wanted an early spring or six more weeks of winter.

100 Days of School!

Today we celebrated our 100th day of school!  We have been collecting canned goods all week to help stock the pantry of a local church.  The kids in my classroom and the classroom across the hall packed the cans in their backpacks and we walked over to the church to deliver our donations.

We started the day off singing our 100 day song and eating our chocolate donuts snack. 

The children worked together and created four 100 day collection posters. 

 They used popsicle sticks, paper clips, stickers, and bingo markers and counted by 2's, 5's, 10's, and 20s.

Teddy bears

Teddy Bears Cure a Cold is a cute story about a teddy bear named William. William has the flu and his fuzzy bear friends nurse him back to health.

Monday the children brought in teddy bears from home. We read, "Teddy Bears Cure a Cold." We are now pretending that our bears are sick. The children made beds; tomorrow they will make paper quilts for their bears. They will also make a paper "sick bear" with a tissue. My very creative teacher friend across the hall designed and shared with me the cute bear with a tissue. We will write a "how to" story of how to help our bears get well. We will also write get well notes to our bears.

The children used connecting cubes to measure their bears and make their beds.  They used shape templates to design their quilts.

Penguins

We started our penguin unit by reading Tacky. Together we completed a story map of the characters, setting, problem and solution. We then read a lot of factual books about penguins and created the penguin tree map. The children made penguins and wrote facts on the penguin's belly.

Pattern Block Snowflakes

In January we always make pattern block snowflakes. It is a good time to talk about patterns and also symmetry. Have the children cut out pattern block shapes from white paper. The children may first design a snowflake using real pattern blocks. It is important to start with the hexagon shape in the middle and then to build on out from the middle. The children then transfer the design to a large blue construction paper circle or blue strips and glue on the white paper pattern blocks.

Polar Bears

This week we are learning about polar bears.  We started the unit by watching Klondike and Snow.  This is a documentary from Denver's Channel Four News about two polar bears that were born at the Denver Zoo and abandoned by their mother.  The kids loved the video.  It is video that was made about 19 years ago.  We did some research and discovered that Snow passed away a few years ago.  We also learned that they had been transferred  a few years after they were born to the Orlando Zoo in Florida. 


After watching the video and reading about polar bears we made a Tree Chart about polar bears.  The children also wrote 2-3 facts on a "paw"  fact recording sheet.

We also did the blubber glove experiment.  This is always a favorite for the kids.   It  helps them to understand how the  layer of blubber beneath a polar bear’s skin really does help it to survive in the Arctic.