Day 54

Day 53

We had a busy Day 53!

But frankly, the students were more focused on tomorrow, Halloween, than....well you know :-)

This morning, we completed our monthly weather graph--counting the sunny, cloudy, windy, and rainy days.

The students completed their own graph.

J'Shawn really was excited.

This afternoon, we read a few books...

Creepy Carrots, and...

Sheep Trick or Treat.

Have a safe and fun filled Halloween and don't forget to FALL BACK!

Set your clocks back an hour before you go to bed on Saturday!

Day 52

We began our day with a little treat--roasted pumpkin seeds.

Last night, I prepared the seeds that we extracted from our pumpkin on Day 51.

Toasted and salted, pumpkin seeds have a nutty flavor. 

Try this recipe at home:

1. Rinse the pumpkin seeds under cold water and make certain to remove the pulp.
2. Place the seeds in and bowl and toss with garlic, sea salt, and extra virgin olive oil.
3. Arrange the seeds on a backing sheet bake at 325 degrees until toasted, about 25 minutes.
4. Store the left over seeds in an air-tight container.

After our treat, we completed our calendar.

During our rotations, I had conferences with the First Graders and we edited their writing assignments from yesterday. They rewrote, edited, and then typed them on the computer. Finally, they created covers for their stories.

Their Pumpkin Patch paragraphs are terrific.

Here are their stories.

The pumpkin patch has a creepy scarecrow with a lot of pumpkins around him. Many vines with green leaves are attached to the pumpkins. These pumpkins will be used for pumpkin bread, pie, soup, and seeds for next year.

My mom has a pumpkin patch. The pumpkin patch has a fierce scarecrow in the east corner. The scarecrow keeps the crows away.

Also during our rotations, Taniya, Tyler, and I played Addition Cross-Out.

This afternoon we played Make 12.

Day 53 is up next!

Day 51

The students were introduced to another coin today! We have been using, pennies, nickels, dimes, and quarters since Day 2 but since we hit Day 50 yesterday we needed to start talking about the half-dollar.

We got our pumpkin and we needed to dress and ready him for Friday.

When we opened him up, we found new pumpkin plants already growing! I put the plants in a plastic bag with some wet paper towel and taped it to one of the East windows until we get them in soil.

The students helped to clean him out.

We collected all the seeds into a bag and I will be roasting them tonight for a snack on Day 52!

If that were not enough, we had 3 good rotations too!

While the students were eating lunch, I had the opportunity to carve a jack-o-lantern. Pretty basic but he does have a nice looking disposition :-)

After recess, the students were introduced to a new Math Work activity. Addition Cross-Out is a dice game that they can play in pairs or in a trio beginning on Monday.

We made Word Wall Sentences.

We watched an adorable video called That's How a Pumpkin Grows.

Finally, we read How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin? And did the Mathematics in the book to check the Mr. Tiffin's class' answers.

What will Day 52 be like?

NOTE: Since I will not be at school on Friday, I will not be able to grade homework until Monday, November 3, 2014. New homework will be available online this Friday but the hard copies will not be distributed until Monday.

Day 50

We began Day 50 with a 100-Chart. We coloured in numbers so we could make a haunted house. So spooky! :-)

During our Rotations, Taniya, Tyler, and Nora counted by 2s...

...Liliana, XXXXX, and I played a dice game called Addition Cross-Out and...

...Megan and Anthony raced through 36 2-digit regrouping problems. They finished them all correctly in 13 minutes and 32 seconds!!!!!

After lunch we ventured further into Zorgamazoo and were introduced to a new character, Winnie.

 Right after recess, the students made words with the -op and -og endings.

Lastly, we read The Musicians of Bremem and discussed the statue in the town of Bremem, Germany that is dedicated to The Musicians.

Tuesday is Day #51!