Chet on the go!

Hope you are stopping in with your child to enjoy the adventures of Chet, the Traveling Bear as he travels around the world. He just got back from a trip to Swaziland, Africa with third grade teacher, Ms. Young and it sounds like he had an awesome trip! TD Chet, our class bear, is on his way to Mrs. Banjer's class in Australia. It will take about 2 weeks for him to get there, but that's okay because our Aussie penfriends are on a two week break from school! I'm sure TD Chet will let us know as soon as he gets there! Make sure to stay tuned as he meets our new penfriends from Mem Fox country!

Open House

What an exciting night to invite our families to join us at school! We had a full house! We loved showing off what we have been learning! Thank you for coming and sharing the time with us!

Pavlova

We are continuing our Author Study of Mem Fox. As we were reading Mem Fox's Possum Magic this week, we discovered many Australian foods that we were not familiar with such as lamingtons, Anzac biscuits and pavlova! So for our Fun Friday Treat we decided to have one of the delicious Australian delights... until we looked at the recipes, which were a little more complex than we had imagined! So... we decided we'd Americanize one of the deserts, Pavlova, which is really a meringue-type dessert with fresh fruit. Our version included a slice of white sponge cake, whipped cream topping with fresh strawberries and blueberries. We discovered that many of our children were eating blueberries for the first time! Some of the children loved them and Chloe even told us about going blueberry picking on a farm last year (we recalled the pattern book that she wrote about the experience), but other children DID NOT LIKE THEM AT ALL! Whether the children liked our version of pavlova or not, the point was to give them some background experience so if they ever come across that word again, they will have a mental image of what it is and what it tastes like and will even remember that it is an Australian dessert. This is the same process we go through with any new vocabulary word although we can't TASTE every new word that we learn! Make sure to ask your child how they enjoyed pavlova as our Fun Friday Treat!

Does it MATTER?

Matter is anything that takes up space. Matter can be a solid, liquid, or gas. Today during Science Inquiry we explored gases. A gas takes up space and can change size and shape. Gas takes the size and shape of what holds it. You cannot see most gases such as air. Gas is inside balloons so we had a great time today using gas to change the shape of our balloons!

Wilfred Gordon McDonald Partridge

We have been reading many of Mem Fox's books in class. Today we read Wilfrid Gordon McDonald Partridge. Not only did Mrs. Timmons and Mrs. Daniels read the book to the class but then they helped the class sequence the events in the story. Your child would really enjoy hearing an oral rendition of this story at home. Make sure to check out this retelling of one of our favorite stories at http://storylineonline.net/. After you have listened to the story with your child, make sure to ask him/her about the items that we sequenced (an egg, a shell, a medal, a puppet, a football). We have been learning to put "events" in our story, just like Mem Fox. See if your child can remember some of the other books we have read by our Aussie author!

Welcome Mem Fox!

We have began an author study of Mem Fox books. She is an author that lives in Australia! Isn't that cool? First grade is studying Australia as our continent for our theme of "Around the World in 180 Days" and now we have a chance to learn about Australia through an author that writes about her native land. We have learned lots of things about Mem including that her parents were missionaries and lived in Africa when she was little; that she lives in Adelaide, Australia near the Indian Ocean; that she is married and has one daughter, named Chloe (just like the Chloe in our classroom!); and that she uses the experiences in her life to write stories just like we do! If you would like to learn more about Mem Fox, you can go to her amazing website and learn all about her, her books and Australia. You can even listen to her read some of her books! make sure to ask your child about the books we have been reading and which is their favorite. Mem Fox' favorite is Koala Lou!

Writers' Workshop

For the first nine weeks we have been working on narrative writing. We are learning to use events from our own life as the inspiration for our stories. We have been using the pictures of our families and some of the things that we like that were sent in last week to help us think about the things that are important to us and that we know a lot about. Then we are trying to take a small moment and stretch it out. We can't wait to share with you some of the stories that the children are writing!