Stone Soup!

This week our kids read a wonderful story called Stone Soup.  Read the summary below written by NM and JD (district computer policy won't allow me to use their real names).

One day three monks walked into a village.They don't see anyone. They set a pot on some sticks they had gathered.A girl came by and said " my mom has a bigger pot." She came back .with a pot bigger than her.Then they got the first ingredient in the pot. Someone said they had some . They came back with tons.Then they got a rock and put it in water.They kept asking for more and more ingredients.Soon they had a pot of boiling and delicious stone soup.They set up some tables and besides the soup they had tons of different foods.They had veggies,fruit,soup and more!!!!!!!!!!They danced and watched puppet movies till 5 o'clock in the morning.Then the monks left and all the villagers thanked them and were finally happy!

We then read several versions of the story from around the world.  All have the same theme but in some versions the characters are trying to trick people into feeding them.  In one version, Cactus Stew, soldiers are trying to get a town to feed them by making stew out of one cactus thorn. The town enjoys the feeling they get from sharing and the soldiers help the people realize just how wonderful     their town could be.

                       

Today we made our very own stone soup. Just like the story our students added the different ingredients throughout the school day.  We shared our soup at the end of the day! Check out our video

Classroom Thanksgiving

Today we had our classroom Thanksgiving!  We started our day learning about the 1st Thanksgiving. The kids read a short reading on the 1st Thanksgiving.  Then they made their Thanksgiving name tags for their place at the table.  As the meal got closer, they got crazier! By noon there was turkey-mania in the classroom.

Here are some things to take away from today.  When I asked the kids what they were most thankful for their answers were almost unanimously family, food and home.  It was very clear this group of kids appreciates their families and the lives you have given them.  Not one child was thankful for video games, stuff they own, or some t.v. show.  

        This was also a student's first Thanksgiving in America! It was so awesome to see him enjoy this American tradition.

I got to enjoy watching the kids laugh watching A Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. They helped each other make thank you cards, color desk name tags, and later work on a science experiment.  To end our day I watched them say Happy Thanksgiving to each other.  

Thanks for a great day! Check out the pictures I got of you guys.  Happy Thanksgiving! 

 

                                         

Mr. DeJohn's Landforms Project

Last week our class began studying landforms on our Earth. They researched and drew pictures of several types of landforms. From there, I had them create all the landforms using Play-Dough. I had them form their favorite landform out of Play-Dough to end that activity. Last Friday, they made Salt Dough and then created their favorite landform out of the salt dough. It took several days for the dough to dry completed. Today, they put the finishing touches on by painting their creations! We used a water based paint so no one ruined their clothes or our room. The kids did great! They worked together, helping each other throughout the project.

Check out the video I put together of the entire project.

Halloween Party and Parade!

We had our annual Halloween party and parade today! The class did an awesome job today and man can they eat snacks! 

Thank you to all of our parents who donated snacks and drinks.  Check out our photos below.  Happy Halloween!

Math Talk

Today during math, RE (abbreviations must be used for students) told our class how he knows a number is even.  He hit it right on the head!  Great job kiddo

Reading Outside

For the last few days we have spent fifteen minutes reading outside under the tree in front of the school.  It is so great to have nice weather and a good book.  I have encouraged all our kids to get outside this next weekend and read.  Pick a quiet place and get lost in a book.  Check out our little people enjoying reading.

Spelling Bee

 

 Today we had Mr. DeJohn Annual Spelling Bee.  Each year I take a list of all the review chapters and combine that into one humongous spelling bee!  Kids received a list of 90 words on Monday.  They have learned every word on the list and used this week to sharpen up on a few that still game them trouble--that was T R O U B L E.

 

Here is what we had left after round 3!  The saddened young people at their chairs were the round one and two casualities.  Most of the kids missing their words by only a letter.  I tried to lessen their tramas by explaining that I too was a casuality of a spelling bee.  It was me and this kid Kevin and my word was BOLOGNA.  Yes I lost on the word BOLOGNA.  Call it nerves or call it for what it was...bologna! To this day I can't go to the deli at Wegmans without shaking my fist at the bologna sign.  Ask you child what word kicked them out of this competition.  (Mr. DeJohn cannot be held responsible for any tramas, bills for psychologists or night sweats.  Parents, remember the forms you signed at the beginning of the year).

Here are our champions!!  Third place RV!  Second place AV!  and First place SG!  Each kiddo won a super cool prize and for SG--You have won the title of Mr. DeJohn's Annual Spelling Bee Champion! Congratulations!!!

Final Non-Fiction Writing Project and Inquiry Project

We are combining our final non-fiction writing piece and our last project for our Sharing the Planet unit of inquiry.  The sub-heading the kids will be exploring through research are:

• Select any habitat you would like to study.  Identify the living and non-living things in that ecosystem.  Give detailed information about that habitat (temperature, features, challenges)
• Select an animal (you may do several) from your eco-system and describe how those animals have adapted to their habitat. 
• Identify a food chain from your habitat and how it works.

Optional part (for extra credit)

• Describe one man-made problem within your ecosystem
• Tell how the man-made problem has impacted the habitat
• Describe one way you think the ecosystem could be restored.

Resources
Use the follow websites to research any of the habitats.  You may also use these sites to look up animals from your habitat by entering animals you are interested in learning about in their search boxes.

Enchanted Learning- ecosystems/biomes
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/biomes/

National Geographic- Habitats
http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/habitats/

BrainPop Jr. Habitats (might need our password)
http://www.brainpopjr.com/science/habitats/

WWF-Habitats
http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/ecoregions/about/habitat_types/habitats/

Specific Habitats

 

Prairies/Grasslands

The National Conservatory- Prairies/grasslands
http://www.nature.org/ourinitiatives/habitats/grasslands/index.htm

Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Grassland

Defenders of Wildlife
https://www.defenders.org/grasslands/basic-facts

Tropical Islands (Hawaii or Fiji)





WWF- Ocean Islands
http://wwf.panda.org/about_our_earth/ecoregions/about/habitat_types/habitats/oceanic_islands/

Wikipedia- (Hawaii or Fiji)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Figi
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawaii

Caves

Journey Into Amazing Caves
http://www.amazingcaves.com/set_learn_ecology.html

Cave Life
http://www.tpwd.state.tx.us/learning/webcasts/caves/habitat_zones.phtml

Cave- Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cave

Swamps

Swamp Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swamp

Georgia Habitat
http://www.lilburnes.org/Students/Habitats/okefenokee.htm

Mangrove Swamps
http://inchinapinch.com/hab_pgs/marine/mangrove/mangrove.htm

Birds of the Swamp
http://www.whatbird.com/browse/objs/All/birds_na_147/113/Habitat/2081/Marshes,%20Swamps/default.aspx

Wetlands
http://www.hamiltonnature.org/habitats/wetland/wetland_animals.htm

National Wildlife Federation- Everglades
http://www.nwf.org/wildlife/wild-places/everglades.aspx


Students will be writing a non-fiction paper and creating a project to display interesting information they have learned.  All work for this will be done in school.  Presentations will be the last week in school!!

Rainforest Mini Research Project, Non Fiction Writing

Last week we begin our non-fiction writing unit.  I had our students learn the process of writing non-fiction writing pieces by writing about a subject they knew a lot about.  This week I will be teaching them how to do research and take notes on a subject.  They will all have the same topic, doing research on the same information and using the same resources to do research. 

The topic of our papers this week will be rainforests.  The kids must find information on...

What is a rainforest?

Animals of the rainforest?

Humans living in rainforests?

Our students will have  websites and videos that I will teach them how to read and pull information from.  I am also providing them with a short non-fiction reading on rainforests they may also use as a resource. 

Their goal is to read and pull out information for each sub-heading above.  They will then take their notes and write their non-fiction reports.

Resources to use

Enchanted learning Rainforests
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/rainforest/

Wikipedia Rainforests
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainforest

Amazon Rainforest Slideshare
http://www.slideshare.net/aquadante/rainforest-interactive-for-3rd-grade

Kids Mongabay-Rainforests
http://kids.mongabay.com/

National Geographic-Rainforests
http://environment.nationalgeographic.com/environment/habitats/rainforest-profile/

NeoK12
Great set of short videos!
http://www.neok12.com/Forests.htm

Oceans--The Coral Reefs

Our 5th area to study will be the ocean coral reefs.  I asked the class which habitat they would like to study for this 5th non-fiction research and writing and they chose coral reefs!

So far in our Sharing the Planet unit of inquiry, the kids have researched and studied the habitats of the world rainforests, deserts and ponds.  They have learned about mammals, reptiles, and amphibians.  We have also studied food chains and looked at food chains from the habitats we have studied. 

The sub-headings they will research for this writing topic will be:



1)  What are coral reefs?  Describe types of coral.

2)  How do animals use coral reefs to help them survive?

3) Study three animals that live on or near coral reefs.

On-Line Resources To Use

Wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coral_reef


Enchanted Learning- Coral Reefs-  Great site for all three subheadings http://www.enchantedlearning.com/biomes/coralreef/coralreef.shtml

3 minute Coral Reef Video--National Geographic
http://video.nationalgeographic.com/video/environment/habitats-environment/habitats-oceans-env/coral-reefs/

The Great Barrier Reef--Video
http://adventure.howstuffworks.com/coral-reef-videos-playlist.htm

National Geographic--Animals of the coral reef
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/invertebrates/coral/

Coral Reef Info Site- Great info on the animals of coral reefs
http://www.coral-reef-info.com/coral-reef-animals.html

Reptile Research

       This week our kids will begin research on a group of animals--The Reptiles.  They will only have two sub-headings to research this week which should allow them to concentrate on finding good information.  They are using the websites below and books from our library to study reptiles.

       Our guiding questions for our research this week will be....

What characteristics does an animal have to have to be called a reptile?

• Find out what is so different about reptiles--think about what we learned about mammals!

What are three good examples of reptiles?

• Find information about three reptiles that interest you most.

      The students will be taking notes in school for most of this week and then turning those notes into a short non-fiction writing piece.

Website Research

Wikipedia Reptiles
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reptile

National Geographic
What pictures and information on this site!!!
http://animals.nationalgeographic.com/animals/reptiles/

The San Diego Zoo
This website has some individual infromation on the actual animals.
http://www.sandiegozoo.org/animalbytes/a-reptiles.html

This frog is learning about the circle of life, the hard way

The Animal Planet
Great video and images of reptiles
http://animal.discovery.com/reptiles

The ARKive
Great pictures and video for fifty reptiles.  Great video to make observations and add info for your notes.
http://www.arkive.org/reptiles/

Enchanted Learning
http://www.enchantedlearning.com/subjects/reptiles/printouts.shtml

Helmer Nature Center Field Trip

Last Friday our class took a field trip to the Helmer Nature Center. In class we are studying ecosystems and our trip to Helmer gave them a pond ecosystem in real life!

Our class learns what they will do at Helmer.

In this picture the class is pretending to be macro invertebrates that live in pond water. They learned some of the organisms are tolerant of poor water quality while some are intolerant. In the this game I was a pond stressor and the kids acted like the organisms. I had to catch them while they moved like the organisms. Some were fast movers- I caught the slow ones!

Here the kids met a pond turtle and a box turtle.

In this last picture the class is about to take water samples to find pond macro invertebrates.  We had a few slips in the mud but no one ended up in the pond!

Chorus Assembly Today!

Check out our kiddos at the assembly today! Students report for the concert tonight at 6:30 at Eastridge.

Release the Butterflies!

A few weeks ago my class started a unit on butterflies.  We received the Painted Lady butterfly in the larva stage.  I had the kids transfer their own larva to a separate small container that contained an ample amount of food (provided by our science kit).  For about a week, the kids watched their tiny caterpillars eat their way to giant, fat, hairy caterpillars.  Then after a weekend, the kids came in an discovered their caterpillar was hanging from the top of each container in a chrysalis.  Once they were all bundled up in their chrysalis forms, I taped the lid of their containers to the lid of a special butterfly habitat and we waited.  For one complete week they watched, every morning before morning work, their little caterpillar to see any changes.  Over last weekend, the hatched!

Check out the video and pictures I took of them when we released them today!
 

Video of our Painted Lady release!



One of the butterflies found a flower and got a quick snack!



Just after opening the habitat!