November 30th, 2009

Today we continued our bread unit. This week, we are focusing on the process of making bread. To stimulate interest in bread, we held a bread investigation. We tried different types of bread.

We tried rye crisps.

Pita bread.

Muffins.

Croissants.

Tortilla.

Delicious!

When we tried the different breads, we reflected on whether we liked it or not and why. If we liked it, we marked a smiley face on our "Bread Investigation Table." If we didn't like it, we circled a sad face on our table.

Most of us liked ALL of the breads!

Later in the day, we revisited our Bread Investigation Tables, and made a graph representing our favorite breads. We took turns putting our new Magnificent Mathematician graph dolls up on our graph with each Mathematician putting their doll in the column representing their favorite bread.



We observed our graph and realized that 10 people chose muffins as their favorite bread! The muffin column was taller/had the most kids choose it. We also noticed that one person each chose pita, tortilla and rye crisp. Two Mathematicians chose croissants as their favorite bread! We will continue to observe and reflect on our bread graph during this next week!

November 24th, 2009

Blog Manager:
"Art was the best time of the day. We got to do bookmarks. We put them in books. But we didn't use them yet. We painted them with finger paints." -Naomi

Today, we picked our jobs for the week with our new job chart. Some of the jobs remained the same (door holder, bell ringer, etc.) but we also got new jobs to try out. We can now choose chair pusher, clean up manager, line leader and blog manager!




We started our bread unit today! To kick off our learning, we completed a KWL chart on bread. A KWL chart is a chart in which we list everything we Know about bread and What we want to know about bread. At the end of the unit, we will revisit the chart and list all we have Learned about bread.






Here are some examples of things we know about bread:
1. Pizza dough and bread dough are the same.
2. Bread has wheat in it.
3. Sometimes bread has raisens.
4. We use bread for PBJ.
5. Gingerbread babies run away.

Here are some ideas we want to discover about bread:
1. How does bread get fluffy ?
2. How do you make dough?
3. What is in bread?
4. What is sowing?
5. What is threshing?

We can't wait to build on our knowledge and find answers to the questions our KWL chart!

We are Readers in the dolphin classroom. We read books all day, everyday, and real readers often find they need bookmarks to mark their places in books they have not finished. Today, we used fall colors to try out our finger paints on pieces of paper we will later use as bookmarks.

William's mom spent the whole morning with us! She was a big help and we love when parents are able to learn with us!

Next Tuesday, we will finish our bookmarks by writing down one thing we are thankful for on our bookmarks and then laminating them so they will last a long time.

Have a good break! See you next Tuesday!

November 23rd, 2009

Blog Managers' Post:
"Today we had rest time. We read books and rested. We get to blog now and be line leaders. We get to be chair pusher-iners. Fingerpainting was good. We made our own bookmarks. We made animals of leaves with our big buddies. I made a deer. We writed a note for Ms. Laurel in the writing center." -Sam M.

"I made a mouse with my big buddy." -Patrick

Today, we picked our jobs for the week with our new job chart. Some of the jobs remained the same (door holder, bell ringer, etc.) but we also got new jobs to try out. We can now choose chair pusher, clean up manager, line leader and blog manager!





We started our bread unit today! To kick off our learning, we completed a KWL chart on bread. A KWL chart is a chart in which we list everything we Know about bread and What we want to know about bread. At the end of the unit, we will revisit the chart and list all we have Learned about bread.





Here are some examples of things we know about bread:
1. Bread is sometimes brown, and sometimes white.
2. Some bread has seeds and some doesn't.
3. Tortillas are a type of bread.
4. We sometimes share bread.
5. Some bread is soft and some bread it hard.

Here are some ideas we want to discover about bread:
1. Why are there different types of bread?
2. What is bread made of?
3. How do you make bread?
4. Is there a type of bread with grapes in it?

We are readers in the dolphin classroom. We read books all day, everyday, and real readers often find they need bookmarks to mark their places in books they have not finished. Today, we used fall colors to try out our finger paints on pieces of paper we will later use as bookmarks.

We used sponges, too, to create different textures.

On Wednesday, we will finish our bookmarks by writing down one thing we are thankful for on our bookmarks and then laminating them so they will last a long time.

We also were visited by our buddies today. We read a book ("Leaf Man") about using the shapes of various leaves to make larger shapes in the form of animals. With our buddies we planned out animals we could build out of different leaf shapes. Today, we followed our plans to actually create our shapes out of pressed leaves.

"Leaf Man" by Lois Ehlert

Bethany's plan.

Bethany's creation.

Everett's snake.

Sam's deer.

November, 20th 2009

Today we made Stone Soup! We first observed our vegetables. We noticed how bright the vegetables were. We noticed that the tomatoes were round smooth, and the carrots were long, skinny and rough. Some of us cut onions, and those hurt our noses.

We practiced cutting potatoes carefully so we wouldn't cut our fingers.

It took alot of persistence to chop some of the veggies. We kept at it, even though it was difficult.

We practiced scraping off our chopped veggies into the bowl using our knives, just like real chefs.

After we cut up our vegetables, we took turns adding them to our crock pot. We used our big muscles to scoop the heavy veggies and pasta from the bowl to the pot. We also added the stone and milk. As we added our veggies we sang, "Bring what you've got! Put it in the pot! We're making stone soup!"

We didn't believe Ms. Katie would put a real rock in the soup (we thought it was a potato!), so we took turns feeling the stone before we dropped it in the pot.

After rest time, we tasted our Stone Soup. Most of us didn't like it. Some of us ate our whole bowl. Here we are trying our soup.

We walked carefully to the tables carrying our soup.

We blew on the soup because it was too hot.

Next week, we'll start learning about bread and make something special for Thanksgiving!