What an exciting day full of research and wonder!

Today, Emily brought a lizard to school that she had found this weekend at home! Our class was very excited to begin researching about our new friend. We found a container to put him inside while we researched and added clear wrap to the top to keep him from crawling out! We discussed the importance of our lizard needing air to breathe so we decided to make holes in the wrap for him.

And then, we researched...

We are not positive, but our prediction is that our lizard friend may have been a bearded dragon that is a newborn! All of the pictures and our lizards actions lead us to that conclusion. He was standing completely still like a statue. This showed us that he was afraid and may have been cold. We learned that he eats crickets and other insects and we decided that we would not be able to meet his needs in that way! The animal lover that I am, I knew I wouldn't be able to feed our lizard the nutrients that he needed! As a class, we decided to let him go so that he could find his way back to his home and natural habitat. 

Of course it was raining, so the kids stayed dry inside while I let the lizard free outside!

Wonder #5

Wonder #5:

What do you want to be when you grow up?

What does our administration do all day??!

Good afternoon!  We are right in the middle of learning about different community helpers in our area!  Today, we learned about our administration.  We had such a fun time composing a list together of what we thought Dr. Patterson and Mrs. Skinner do throughout the day.  Below is the list that we came up with:

What does Dr. Patterson and Mrs. Skinner do all day?

• They talk and write (Callie)
• They write messages (Brooklyn)
• They watch the kids (Triston)
• They take people to the office if they are mean in school (Austin)
• They work on stuff for teachers (Bella)
• They work on the computers (Emary Kate)
• They have cameras and watch kids (Jake)
• They take pictures of your writing and drawing (Sam)
• If you are good, they may give you a sticker (Cameron)
• If you do something wrong, they will call you out on the speakers because they have cameras that they watch us with (Chase L.)
• They watch tv (LJ)
• He works to make money (Brooke)
• Writes messages on his computer. (Kendall)
• He rides the bus home (Taegan)
• They sit in their chairs for the whole day so they don’t have to walk around and they help kids up when they fall. (Ethan)
• They help people when they get hurt (Brooklyn)
• They have to do the cold water challenge (Ethan).

I can tell that they have really been watching and observing Dr. Patterson and Mrs. Skinner these first few weeks of school!

Sorting numbers: BIGGER and smaller

This week in math, we are focusing on comparing numbers! Today, we worked to determine numbers and sort by BIGGER and smaller.

Our 201 All*Stars dressed like pirates today!

Creating and Building our Map of the Community

This week, we were given a special challenge! Dr. Patterson asked if we would create a map of our community for him!

We started the week by composing a list of the features of our community that we needed to include on our map.

Next, we created a blue print of our community to aide us in building our map.

Lastly, we sketched out our community and built it using materials we could find around our classroom.  *I wanted to give a special thanks to the kids who brought in toilet paper and paper towel rolls to use in building our community!*

We have worked so hard on our map this week! We really hope Dr. Patterson likes it!

Wonder #4

Wonder #4:

What jobs did people have in the past?

How many sets can you make in 1 minute?

This week, we have been practicing making sets in math.  We played this fun game where the learning club groups were in competition with each other to see which table could make the most sets of 5 in one minute.  They absolutely LOVED this game!

Continuing our Map books

This week we have been working hard on our map books!

We started the week with a Map of our Classroom:

Next, we created a Map of our School:

Today, we created a Map of our Community:

Tomorrow, we are excited to share our Map Books with the entire class!