Thank You Parents and Grandparents - Mathternoon was Terrific

Habitat Fun

One of our Common Core Standards is to understand the different habitats throughout the world and the animals and plants that live there.  Miss Melanie made some clay for us so we started by taking blue clay and making it into an earth.  We learned that 70% of the earth is covered by water.  Then we added some land.  We learned that there are seven continents.  We added six green continents to our earth and two white ones to represent the Arctic and Antarctic. We learned that the rain forests and deserts are closest to the Equator and that the Coniferous forests have all four seasons.

Learning About the Arctic - We learned that animals that live in the Arctic and Antarctic have blubber to keep them warm.  We learned that blubber is fat.  We thought we would try it out.  We got a big bowl of ice cold water. First, we put our hands in the freezing water.  Then, we covered our hands with Crisco lard and put them back in the freezing water.  The kids said their hand wasn't as cold with the Crisco on it.  Miss Howell helped the kids with this project.  They wrote what they thought about it.  Some of them are ready to go to the Arctic and wear a blubber suit.

 

Dress Like a Pirate Day!

We are learning about r-controlled vowels.  We noticed that when the letter "r" follows a vowel the  "r" becomes very bossy and you can't hear the vowel.  They are kind of like pirates.  Pirates are bossy too. When you read a word with a bossy "r" you can't even hear the vowel.  First, we played a game called Golden Vowels.  The girls started out as the vowels and the boys the Pirates.  Miss Melanie announced a word like "star"., The girls chose the appropriate vowel and then would hide somewhere in the room.  The Pirates would them search for them and when they found them each vowel girl and bossy "r" boy would write down the word.  Then the kids switched places.  They wrote about ten words.
Next, we did a Math game.  We counted Pirate "booty" money and wrote down how much was in each bag.  We are getting good at counting and adding quarters.
Last, we split into two teams and went on a treasure hunt through the school.  Ms. Howell (our student teacher) took one group and Miss Melanie took the other.  We searched the whole school and found the treasures right in our classroom.  We found out we can do almost anything if we work together.  It was a great day with a lot of great learning.