2/25/19

Pinecone in Water Experiment

Make-a-Crossword Puzzle Group Vocab Activity

Reader's Journals in the SUN!

Adding gymnosperm info to their science notebooks

Continuing the pysanky project.... and learning patience, planning, and focus!

2/11/19

What a great day!  The kids were all excited to celebrate Valentine's Day together.  We somehow managed to get our animal care jobs and agriculture lessons in before exploding into cards, boxes, and treats!  


After the kids read their Farm Fusion stories, we talked a little more about pysanka (Ukrainian dyed eggs).  Then, I read the book, P. Zonka Lays an Egg.  This was an absolutely perfect book for our lesson!  At home, the kids will have an option of writing about the book from P. Zonka's point of view, which I think would be interesting to hear!

The class was able to practice using the kistkas and beeswax on paper before trying to draw their beeswax designs on their eggs.  I also showed them my trick of using rubber bands to help create the pencil guide lines.  I know that this can be a very frustrating art form, even for adults, but I really like teaching it to children.  I explain to them that their attempt will NOT be perfect, they will work incredibly hard, and it might break!  It's a lesson in patience and self control.  The act of heating the kistkas and beeswax over the candle uses fine motor skills and time. I love teaching pysanky!  

After our Valentine's Day celebration, the kids talked about their new book, "Who Was Ernest Shackleton?"  We talked about the vocabulary words from the first four chapters.  To review, the kids came up with their own sentences for the words using white boards.  They practiced capitalization, punctuation, handwriting, and vocabulary.  We talked about Shackleton's sense of adventure and his expeditions to the south pole.  I'll be asking the kids to come up with their own exciting expedition!  They'll be writing about their dream trip in their reader's journals.  

The class pulled out their hamburger outlines, and we talked about each one.  They did a great job with these!  The topic sentences were well written, the supporting sentences were all on topic, and they wrapped it up with a bow at the end!  We worked on fixing repetitive words by switching some out with synonyms.  Some kids had to change the beginnings of their sentences or add transition words to give the sentences some variation.  After talking them through, we set to writing the paragraphs into our reader's journals.  They learned to indent the first line, and they also learned not to write each sentence on its own line.  These things will take practice to learn and to "stick"!

Next, we reviewed the parts of speech, adding conjunctions and articles to the mix.  Although the class knows the definitions very well, we are still struggling a bit on identifying adjectives and adverbs in sentences.  We'll be working with this over the next few weeks so they can master it before moving on!  Parents, also work on reviewing the different types of verbs.  It's been a while since our verb lessons, and they could use a review!

Our carnations have turned blue!  The class learned about how vascular plants carry fluids and nutrients up from the roots to the leaves and flowers.  Although this was a flowering plant, we actually spent the day talking about a different type of vascular plant: gymnosperm.  The kids added a couple pages to their science notebooks, and we took turns reading the paragraphs out loud.  They will be rereading this material at home and completing a few short questions on the information.

Two of our goats have now kidded, and we have 4 bucklings and 1 doeling!  The class is very excited to see who comes next!  We'll be taking a little break next week.  I'll see everyone again on the 25th!

2/4/19

Carnation Experiment : Vascular Plants