Lots of Learning!

In Library last week Ms. Z had some fun "swag" for us from Ame Dyckman, author of Wolfie the Bunny and Horrible Bear.  It was a fun surprise!  We also read another Star of the North book, The Bear ate Your Sandwich.  We will read all of the Star of the North books and vote on our favorite in the spring.

Last Friday we held our Class Mascot Election.  Each student voted and represented one or two states in the electoral college.  It was a very close race.  In the end, Panda is our new class mascot in both the popular vote and electoral college.  

Today we started learning about letter writing.  We read Dear Bear and wrote a letter to our 5th grade buddies.  We will be writing more letters this week!  

Author Study and Election news!

Today we started a new author study.  We will be reading books by Mo Willems.  He writes some familiar books that are part of a series or collection and some not so familiar books that are more one of a kind.  

We reviewed our results from the election yesterday.  The people who voted for the penguin asked for a recount, however the votes remained as tallied.


We will have the final election on Friday and compare the Popular Vote to the Electoral College vote. 

We talked about our Election and what might make Peter Panda or Scout Dog a good mascot.  We talked about what our mascot might do.  Here are some of the suggestions:

• go home with us on weekends
• go on field trips with us
• sit on the desk of the birthday person
• be a reward for Bengal Pride tickets
• be a buddy for good reading behavior

Class Mascot Election!

In our room we are a little late to the election party.

Last week I introduced the four animals that would be running for class mascot.  The class mascot will be used in various ways including as a weekend take home buddy for journal writing and possibly on field trips and to assemblies.

Our candidates are Elizabeth Elephant, Percy Penguin, Scout Dog and Peter Panda.

On Monday we read their campaign posters which stated reasons why they would be a good mascot for the class.  They were all quite convincing.

Students registered to vote by completing a form and special card with their picture.

We made posters with information about why voters should vote for a particular candidate.

Today we held the Primary Election and narrowed down our choices to just two.  Everyone got an "I Voted" sticker.  We will have the final election on Friday.  

Star of the North

Today in library we learned about The Star of the North Picture Book Award nominees.  Throughout this year, ms. Zbacnik will read us all of the nominated books.  We will get to vote on our favorite book in April.  This award is only for kids who live in Minnesota.  It is a picture book award that is decided by children!

Today we read Wolfie the Bunny.  It was hilarious!  Ask you child what he/she remembers about the story.  We did a directed drawing of Wolfie!  They all turned out so cute!  We have the option of leaving the Wolfies at school for a display or taking them home.  

Math Games

On days we do Check My Progress in math, we have time for math games!  I have a variety of games students can play and there are other games students play with the Everyday Math deck of cards.  Here is our game time from yesterday!

Math Dice

Mancala

Uno

Square by Square

Addition Top It

Password

Gratitude

This morning we met with out 5th grade buddies.  We read All the World together and talked about what we are thankful for.   There are so many things in our world that we can be thankful for, sometimes it is a matter of stopping to notice those things.

Each pair or trio of buddies made a quilt square for our Brimhall Gratitude Quilt.  Buddies worked together to split the quilt paper piece and then designed their piece to represent something they are thankful for in hie/her life.

All of the pieces turned out really well!  They look so beautiful and really represent a variety of things!  Good work Buddies!