This Week in Review - October 22 - 26

                                     This information is also found in Walter's weekly email:

We are getting ever nearer to 1001 things in our 1001 Things to Spot in the Sea quest! The students are getting so much faster and more secure in their ability to use different strategies to add up a long list of numbers with accuracy. More important, they are realizing the importance of double-checking their work – it often saves time in the end! We are also getting good practice reading numbers up to the hundred-millions place.

 Emma and Finley did a fine job at their first time up to bat as Special Readers on Monday. It is always a little scary to do something for the first time, especially when it means public speaking, but they ably rose to the challenge. Their 2^nd grade comrades were sweet and supportive, of course. Other weekly routines included illustrating this week’s poem, working on our batch of spelling words, having library time, and listening to picture books as well as our chapter book, Winnie the Pooh.

Monday was my birthday, so as is our tradition I brought in a book to donate to our birthday book shelf. I inscribed it to some special people and read it before we made a special birthday treat. These healthy snacks turned out almost too cute to eat! Each child also go the recipe to take home in case they would like to make the rice cake kitties at home again.

We completed two writing assignments this week – our usual memory page, plus a special drawing/writing mini-project called “create a new soft toy for IKEA.” This was part of their campaign/contest looking for contributions from kids from all over the country for new soft toy design ideas. My students were very creative and I would happily purchase any of their sweet toys if they came to fruition!

We went “adventuring” on Thursday afternoon in search of more items of nature – specifically leaves to graph, seeds to catalog, and mushrooms to document. Donning our adventure bags, we set off for County Farm Park not knowing what we would find. Well, we rounded a corner and WOW! A hill to roll down! Off came the bags, and all thoughts of specimen collection went out the window. Children screamed with delight and spent the next 30 minutes rolling, rolling, rolling. Oh well. It was very much worth it. Science can wait for another day – this day belonged to a different type of adventure.

On Friday morning, we went on a special field trip to the Wild Swan Theater to see A Honey Pot of Pooh Stories. This was a very special treat for us as it brought to life some of the stories from our current read-aloud.