Ask me what I am thankful for and I will show you!  Today, in writing, we shared all of the things that we are thankful for.  In Social Studies, we have been talking about our emotions.  Being grateful is a special feeling that makes you warm and fuzzy inside.  We enjoyed sharing our Thanksgiving thoughts.  Make sure you peek in our backpacks...there is a special surprise for you!

We would like to wish all of our friends and families a very happy and healthy Thanksgiving.  
Enjoy the rest of your week.  We will see you in December!!!!

Ask me all about Albuquerque The Turkey!!!

Ask me all about Mo Willems!!!  His pigeon shouldn't come to Writer's Workshop because we just won't stop laughing!!!
We have been reading Mo Willems books all week.  We love his characters and how they make us laugh.  We have been looking closely at his work as a writer to figure out what makes his books so special. We noticed that Mo Willems...

• adds speech bubbles to help tell the story
• uses different size writing to show how a character is talking
• adds conversation
• really shows how a character is feeling

We love Mo Willems!!!  Here are some of our favorite books!!!

Ask me all about my reading strategies!!!   I know just what to do when I come to a word that I don't know!!!

• Use my eagle eye to check the picture
• Use my fish lips to get my mouth ready
• Stretch the word out like a snake
• Be a try'n lion and go back and read it again
  

We have been reading a non-fiction big book on our Smartboard all week. Each day we added another strategy to figure out the words that Mrs. Brady covered up.  We worked so hard!!!  Now, when we are stuck, we can look at our Strategy Tree and see the animals that help us 

Ask me all about Writer's Workshop.  We have been looking closely at the character Harold and his purple crayon.  We noticed that he adds so many details to his drawings by making things out of simple shapes and lines.  We looked back at the enrichment work that we did in art with Mrs. Sweet and made a list of all of the geometric shapes we can use to create our illustrations.  Then we shared all of the different types of lines we can use in our drawings to add interest and details.  We hung the chart in a special place where everyone can use it as a reference during writing.  You should see our stories now!!!  The details are amazing.  
Adding more to our illustrations gives us more to write about.  It helps us plan our stories and explain our thinking more clearly.  We are amazing writers!!!

Ask me all about our new version of Grab and Count!  Today during Math Workshop we worked with our math partners to count, not one handful of cubes, but two!!!  We were greedy!!!
We used some tools from our math toolbox and tried to find the most efficient and accurate way to count.  Mrs. Brady took picture of us working and when we closed workshop, we shared our thinking.  It was fun to listen to our friends and to learn how they counted!

Some friends spread out the cubes in a line and counted, some friends connected the cubes and counted, some friends put the cubes in a block shape and counted, some friends used a tens frame (another tool from our math toolbox) to organize and count their cubes, and others worked together handing the cubes over to their partner to count.  After we shared, we thought about which way was the most efficient (quickest) and accurate (precise) way to count.  We can't wait to play Greedy Grab and Count during our next round of Math Stations!

Ask me all about stretching out words!  In writing, we have been working on slowing down and saying words slowly to hear all of the individual letter sounds.  We are working on putting down beginning, middle and ending sounds for many of the words we want to write.
To help work towards independence, we have been writing at many of our learning stations, too!  We made menus in the restaurant and we wrote down people's food orders, etc.  Today we added a new twist to our community station!  We started labeling all of the things that we built..."garage", "door", "airport", "building", "house"....we even built the "Great Wall of Kindergarten" (It was very cute!)  
No matter what we are doing during the day, we are always working hard!!!

Ask be all about Bus Behavior!  Today we had a class meeting to talk about how we have been behaving on the bus.  We shared our thoughts and then we made a big list of reminders to put on our classroom door.  They will be the last thing we read when we leave our room each day!

Bus Behavior Reminders
-SIT on your bottom
-STAY in your seat
-Keep your hands to YOURSELF
-Use a QUIET voice
-Keep your things IN YOUR BACKPACK
-NO pretend weapons or guns
-Be KIND to your friends
-LISTEN to the bus driver
-Be SAFE

Ask me all about Writer's Workshop!!!  We are getting ready to celebrate our Small Moment writing pieces. Yesterday we chose which piece we wanted to publish and we "added more".  Today we talked about celebrating writing and how we could "fancy-up" our story.  
We looked closely at Fancy Nancy, a famous and very silly character that we all know and love.  We noticed that when when she gets ready to celebrate she wears bows, and a tiara, and fancy shoes & dresses.  She even dresses up her little brother!!!  We talked about all of the things we can do to our stories to get them ready to celebrate.  We are adding details, details, details!!!  
We were working so hard that we didn't want to stop for lunch...again!!!
We can't wait to share our finished pieces!!!  

Ask me all about measurement.  Today we explored different ways to measure our shoes.  We used cubes as a math tool.  We are learning math language, such as...length, accuracy, top and bottom.  We compared our findings and noticed that many people measured different ways.  Some of us measured how long our shoe was from top to bottom, some of us measured up the side, and some of us even measured all the way around.
Tomorrow we are going to revisit measuring.  We are going to look at many "famous feet" from Warren School and discuss how to measure length accurately and consistently.  Then we are going to get to work.  We have shoe shadows from Mrs. Vernali, Mrs. Yarrish, Mrs. B., Mrs. Woodington, and many more...even Mr. Hibbert.  We can't wait!!

After our Number talk today, we went off with our math partners and tried partitioning the number 4!!!  We played a game called Tip the Cup.  Wow!!!  We did such a good job!  We even wrote equations to go along with our counters!

Ask me all about germs!!!   A lot of our friends are not feeling their best.  It makes us sad when someone is home sick.  Our school nurse, Mrs. Vernali has been talking to us about good germs and bad germs.  We learned about something special called the T zone!  Your eyes, nose and mouth are the places where most germs come and go.
So...
Cover you cough (With your arm)
Use a tissue if your nose is itchy
Keep your hands out of your mouth
Wash your hands with soap and water
If you are not feeling well, tell somebody!!!
Feel better everyone!!!  Hopefully if we all do a good job, our class will will be happy and healthy again soon!!!

Ask me all about our Thank You notes!!!  This week we have been preparing for a special Veteran's Day Luncheon.  The whole school has been painting American Flags and singing a special Thank You song.  We can hear friends singing it to themselves as they walk around warren School!
Today we wrote special Thank You notes to give to the Veterans when they come to lunch on Friday.  We worked very hard and used our neatest handwriting.  They are beautiful!!!  Our third grade friends are going to attach our notes to the American Flags so that the Veterans can leave with both...What a special gift from our hearts!!!
Click the button below to hear the Thank You song we have been practicing.

Today we read The Hello, Goodbye Window, by Norton Juster and Chris Raschka.  It is a wonderful memoir about a little girl's visit to her Nanna and Poppy's house.   During Shared Reading we are learning how to make personal connections to books.  We "turned and talked" and shared fun and special things that we do with our grand parents.  Many of us are just like the little girl in the story.  
During Writer's Workshop, we looked at the text a little more closely.  We noticed that each page of the book contained a small moment that the little girl could write about...Poppy and his harmonica, Nanna and Poppy's big busy kitchen, having a water fight in the back yard...All of these things could be stretched into beautiful stories!!!  We went off and wrote so much today....we were almost late for lunch!!!

Ask me all about pumpkins!!!  I know how they grow, how to take care of them, what you can make from them, and even how they taste!!!
Today we culminated our Pumpkin Study with a little Science, Math, Reading and Writing!!!  First, during Shared Reading we read Too Many Pumpkins, by Linda White and Pumpkins, a non-fiction book by James Tandy.  We laughed, made connections and predictions!  Next we used our Five Senses and our Math skills to follow a special pumpkin pancake recipe (We wrote out "How To" directions for everyone to take home!!!).  We counted and mixed, counted and mixed.  Our room smelled so good!!!  Then we had a special taste test.  We tried pumpkin pancakes and pumpkin muffins. (Thanks, DJ!)  At the end of the day, we graphed which one we liked the best!!!

Ask me all about the Computer Lab!!!  We stayed in the library after our special today and we got to visit a special program called Lexia.  We have a user name and password just for each of us!  The program is a lot of fun.  We got to use the headphones and everything!!!  Now that we are all familiar with Lexia we are going to be able to use it in our classroom, as well.  How fun!!!