Red Ribbon week 2012!

We had fun with our Red Ribbon dress up days! Monday: Be a Hero Every Day- Be Drug Free
Tuesday: Say Peace Out to Bad Habbits

CBA!

The Math CBA is tomorrow so make sure your student gets a good nights sleep!

Sundials

Today began our study on shadows. We made a sundial and we are going to observe it druing different parts of the day to see how the shadows change. We will learn how people used these long ago before we had clocks to tell the time. Here are a few pictures us observing today!

Journey of a water molecole

Here is Caden's Water Molecule's Journey. (sorry it's sideways!)

Math homework!

Your student should have come home yesterday with a problem solving packet. It is a good way to prepare for the CBA we will take on Wednesday. It is due on Tuesday!

Our blog at your fingertips!

I love how this student has our blog on his homescreen! Our blog at his fingertips! <a href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/45415286@N08/8124870409/" title="school 043 by chelsihenry, on Flickr"><img src="http://farm9.staticflickr.com/8327/8124870409_ccc9c00a77.jpg" width="375" height="500" alt="school 043"></a>

Zoo program

Because we did such a good job with the Smith Stampede the PTA treated us with a visit from the Dallas Zoo! It was a neat program with a lot of interesting animals that we learned a lot of facts about! I only got pictures of 2 of them because I had to leave for a meeting.
This is an owl. We learned that it's eyes are as big as ours and that it only weighs 3 pounds even though it looks much bigger because of all it's feathers. Her favorite food is skunk. It's a good thing she can't smell! We also got to meet this alligator. When is grows up it is going to be 16 feet long! The other animals we met were: an armadillo, a sloth and another bird. Ask your student what they learned!

What our room sounds like today

Today we listened to this song while we worked on our "Journey of a Water Molecule" comic strip project. We all thought this song sounded like a rain storm, though we later saw the title was Elements of Fire.

What a great group!

Multiply or Divide

Today we did an activity in math where my students we paired up in partners. They had to divide their paper in half and write multiply on one side and divide on the other. The then had to read different story problems and decide if they would solve the problem using division or multiplication and write the number sentence for the problem. The students really enjoyed it and it was great practice!

Journey on the Water Cycle

This week we continuted our study on the Water Cycle. Tuesday we started an activity called "The Journey of the Water Cycle." We pretended we were a molecule traveling through the Water Cycle. Each student began at one of the stations below: They then had to role a dice to see where they would move next in the Water Cycle and fill out this sheet as they went on. Everyone had fun on their journey! Today we started working on a comic strip of our Water Molecule's adventures. They are sure turning out cute and the kids are learning as well. Fun and learning combined, that's my kind of a school day! *Parents- ask your student what a Water Molecule is made of....I hope they will surprise you with their Science knowledge!

Problem Solving with Word Problems.

Did you know that a good way to teach kids to solve word problems is to have them create their own word problems?  When they have to actually think about how to word a problem to be solved, it helps them to undertand what is going on in other problems they don't write. We worked on this last week in class.  Here are a few examples of some of our work!
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Study trip to the Story Tellling Festival

We had so much fun at our study trip to the Frisco Story Telling Festival!

Since we were going to be gone during our normal lunch time, we got to eat lunch in the room early before we left. The kids always think it's fun to eat in the room! After a quick bus ride we arrived at Dr. Pepper Arena!

I snapped a few pictures while we waited to go in. Smith Elementary had great seats front and center!

There was fun music playing while we waited. The students all loved singing and dancing to the music! The first storyteller told a story about the day it rained tortillas. The next storyteller told about the three wolves and the big, bad pig This lady told about a spooky house! The next lady taught us to count to 10 in Japanese in her story. This guy was so funny and told us a story about African animals at the watering hole The last guy sang a funny song about jelly! Then we headed back to school on the bus. We all had a fabulous time! Ask your child to tell you about the stories we heard!