Our Number eBooks

The children worked very hard on their first, individual, eBook and I wanted to be sure that everyone was able to see that hard work. Here are the links to the wonderful creations that were put together in a relatively short amount of time.

We utilized the application My Story for this eBook. We are also using this for our portfolios.

Alexis
Bryce
Dillon
Eli
Hope
Kaden
Landen
Leslie
Lily
Logan
Neela
Noah
Odin
Reese
William

We are Thankful

Today, we read the story of how Thanksgiving began. Sarah Hale wrote several letters to the presidents of our country. All said no, that is until president Lincoln told her yes. If you are interested in seeing the story we read, check out the following link: True Story of Thanksgiving.

We compiled our reasons for being thankful today. First, we wrote in our journals and discussed our answers with our friends. We then put them together in a video. We hope you enjoy our video, we are thankful.

Election Day!

It is time to vote. We spent part of the morning talking about elections, voting, and how/why people do this in our country. We used a website to talk more about the presidential nominees.

The kids were then able to join BES and vote for their choice. We went to our library and voted on iPads. Here is the site we used to vote:

We will find out the results tomorrow. We were able to study the candidates, make a choice, vote, and either share our choice with others or choose to keep it private. It was a fun day!

Waiting in line to register

Registering by signing our names

Placing our votes

Painting Pumpkins!

Well, they are not pumpkins, but close enough. When we started our pumpkin unit, the kids mentioned that they would really like to paint pumpkins. I had nearly 100 gords from my garden to use up, so this was a perfect opportunity. The kids voted, and chose to paint and glitter their pumpkins.

We posted these, and several other pictures/videos, on the Shutterfly site as well. Be sure to check it out!

For our Friends!

Today, we viewed the blog of our friends in Canada,

Mrs. Fennemore's Kinderkids

They had shared some wonderful pictures as well as a video of a poem they had recorded. It provided the kids with a little inspiration, and we decided to make a video of our own. 

We started by discussing the concept of a stage. There wasn't enough time to build an entire stage, so we settled on a mural for the background. It took a lot of teamwork to pull that together, as the paper was about 20 feet long. 

After some decorating, we practiced and recorded our favorite pumpkin poem, "Five Little Pumpkins". We hope our friends in Mrs. Fennemore's class enjoy!

Pumpkin Patches and Numbers

This week, we have been talking about pumpkins. We started by watching "How Pumpkins Grow". We made pumpkin people and painted pumpkins with different faces.

The story of Spookley the Square Pumpkin was fun to read and watch online.

The kids created their own pumpkin patches and wrote the words, "My pumpkins are ____". There were square, rectangle, purple, blue, circle, scared, and silly pumpkins in our class.

We also worked on writing our numbers to 10. We used paper and our iPads (The Handwriting Without Tears app) to practice. When writing numbers, we need to start at the top and move to the right. Numbers are important because we use them every day.

Bats and Spiders!

We have spent the week discussing bats and spiders. We found that many of us do not like these animals. However, we did learn that there are some good things about them. During our internet searches, book reads, and discussions, this is what we learned:

• Bats are not birds (LN)
• Bats can fly (LD)
• Bats eat bugs (BF)
• Bats stay away from people (LL)
• Bats are the only flying mammal (DS)
• Bats can hang upside down (OW)
• Bats are not flying rats (NH)
• Bats can fly into houses (RN)
• Spiders hide from people (KC)
• Bats do not drink human blood (EG)
• There are more than a thousand different kinds of bats (HJ)
• Spiders and bats are afraid of us (AP)
• Some spiders can be nice (LN)
• Some spiders hibernate in the Winter (LL)
• Some spiders hide in houses (LN)
• Spiders have 8 legs (all of us)
• Bats can climb because of their 8 legs (OW)
• I like bats and spiders (LW)

The kids then created a crayon/watercolor contrast of bats and spiders at night. The kids made this a great unit. We can't wait to discuss and explore pumpkins next week!