We are Thankful!

This week we learned a little about the history of Thanksgiving with Mrs. Brennan in Social Studies. We also read the true story about Sarah Josepha Buell Hale, the woman who helped to make Thanksgiving a national holiday.  Miss Abro led the children in some opinion writing on their favorite thanksgiving foods, and we had a lovely all school assembly to learn more about the history of the holiday, and celebrate all that we are thankful for as a school. Thanks also to Greta, who shared photos of her horse camp as part of her birthday celebration, and answered many questions that we all had about horses!  

I am thankful for all of you wonderful students and parents, and wish you a warm and peaceful time with your loved ones.

Subtraction Top-It

This week we learned how to play "Subtraction Top-It". The game is very simple: each child flips over two cards and finds the difference. The player with the larger difference takes the cards.  These basic subtraction facts are extremely important skill and this game reinforces automaticity of these facts.

Learning with Miss Abro

We have been enjoying getting to know our new student teacher, Miss Abro!

This week Miss Abro led the students in a Thanksgiving writing project that some of your children have started to bring home.  After filling out their turkeys with at least five things they are thankful for, they needed to write about each.  Miss Abro challenged them to use different words other than "I am thankful for..." on each line.  The students came up with words like "grateful" "lucky" and "appreciative".

Miss Abro has also started our next science unit on Magnets with the students.  Today the kids went on a scavenger hunt around the room to find out which objects and furniture were magnetic.

Ann Arbor District Library Trip

We had a great time on our field trip to the Ann Arbor District Library on Friday!  Big thanks to 

Lenore Webb and Nick Greashaber for joining us on this trip!

The Human Brain

This week in science we learned about parts of the brain that are activated related to sight, smell, taste, emotions, words and sound. We also looked at PET scans, which is a picture of the human brain taken by a very sensitive machine which shows active parts of the brain in a particular color.  We then tried four foods that were new to several of the children (cornichons, coconut chips, fennel bulb and roasted seaweed) and talked about our reactions regarding the connections with various parts of brain (emotion, sound, smell, etc).

Human Growth

As a part of our Life Cycles unit, we will be learning about how we grow as human beings. The students will be tracking their own growth from fall to spring.  On Friday, the students partners up and measured each other's hand and foot length, head circumference and height.  Each child made predictions about how much they thought they would grow by spring.

Fact Triangles

This week we have been using Fact Triangles to help us practice our math facts.  The fact triangles that came home in the homework folders can stay home and be used for practice at home.  The children have a second set at school.

One student covers up a number with her finger, and the other student must say the number sentence that goes with the fact family.

Ex: 14 - 9 = 5 

or

5 + 9 = 14

Non-Fiction Writing

This week the students began writing reports on spiders (continuing with something slightly spooky after Halloween)!  The children paired up and began by using a "telling brain frame" to record facts about spiders.

Salute!

On Monday we learned a very fun new math game called "Salute!"  This one can be played at home with a regular deck of cards.  (See directions below- click on each photo to see it larger.)