Writing Process: Publishing

This week in writing we got started publishing our very first Children's book. You heard correctly, your children are now published authors! ;). We split our written stories into pages and typed them into Microsoft Word. For some extra flair we added fun fonts. All that's left is to make the cover and illustrations. We can't wait for you to see our finished pieces!

Leaning Tower of Feetzah

Mrs. Gibson payed a special visit to our room the other day and needless to say we had a lot of fun. Her lesson was on teamwork and luckily it did not stink!  Students were put in groups and told to make the tallest free standing structure they could with only shoes. The group that won did so because they worked together, listened to each other's ideas, and compromised. It was a great learning experience and I was impressed by their hard work!  

Math This Week: Data and Graphing

In math this week we've been learning about graphing and we started with the ever popular pictographs.  Pictographs are a way to show data using pictures.  We originally made a tally chart showing the favorite ice cream flavors of the class and turned it into a pictograph.  We also made some of our own pictographs showing our own data.  This is a great life skill as data and graphs are used often in the world around us.

Can't Get Enough Cursive

Cursive practice is in full force in Mrs. Hunter's class!  We've almost tackled all of the lowercase letters and will begin the uppercase letters soon.  The students are eager to put their skills to use and to use cursive during their everyday writing.

Please do not practice any cursive at home until we are done teaching the lowercase letters.  We use specific terminology to teach the formation of letters and we don't want to create any confusion.

When it is time to practice cursive at home, make sure your child is sitting in a chair at a desk or table with a fresh pencil.  They should be sitting straight up with both feet on the ground.  This posture helps ensure the best possible handwriting.

We've done a great job practicing so far.  Enjoy some pictures of our work below.

National Symbols with 30 hands!

Remember our exploration with 30 hands??  Well we were able to put it to good use while we studied our national symbols.  First, students researched on computers about two of our national symbols.  After their research was complete, they made a 30 hands presentation to present to the class.  They were required to state their symbol, and include at least one picture and two facts.  The rest was left to them!  They really took the project and ran with it and I was pleased to see them adding their own flair.  Many went above and beyond to make their presentations AMAZING!!

Exploring with Ipads

We're lucky at TMP to have some amazing technology right at our fingertips.  Our latest exploration was with Ipad app 30 hands.  This application is similar to PowerPoint in that students can create presentations but it is much more user friendly.  Using the app, students can type, write with their finger, or record their voice as well as draw pictures, take pictures, and upload pictures from the internet.   For our initial exploration, students were allowed to make presentations on anything they wanted.  It was wonderful to have their creative sides come through!  Enjoy some pictures from our exploration.

Our Class Rule

With our Government unit coming to a close, we thought it would be fun to do a real life simulation of how rules and laws effect a community.  The class was split into the three groups responsible for laws.  We had a city council to create our law, judges to interpret our law, and police to enforce our law.  At our town meeting, I met with the council who decided on three different possible laws.  Then it was put to our entire class for a vote.  Each student filled out a voter registration card and went to their polling place to cast their vote.  The law that came to pass was that any time students came to the carpet they would need to Army crawl.  Next I sat in on the judges chambers where they decided that anyone who broke the law would be required to dance like a ballerina for a minute.  On the day of the law, the police officers sent anyone who broke it to "jail" which was set up at the round table.  Two times a day, "offenders" could make bail by dancing like a ballerina while the judges watched.

This day was  A LOT of fun!  Students got to see the lawmaking process all the way through and what happens when laws are broken.  By the end of the day everyone, offender or not, was just dying to dance like a ballerina.  Enjoy some pictures of the event!

Dancing like ballerinas:

 Army crawling: