Double it up!

http://youtu.be/ljPKoNJH1Jg

Pumpkin Time!

Autumn is my favorite season of the year! We get cool weather, cute scarves, boots, and PUMPKIN everything! Pumpkin lattes, pumpkin soup, pumpkin muffins, pumpkin seeds, pumpkin bread, pumpkin salsa and at school PUMPKIN MATH! A HUGE THANK YOU to everybody that sent in pumpkins for our experiment this year! My firsties had a blast! Check them out...

First we made our croc pot pumpkin bread! My friend Mrs. Kelly found a really great and super simple recipe we tried out! The kids are begging me to post the recipe so they can make it at home!

 

 

 

 

 

  We had to wait 3 hours...but it was so worth it!

 

Next up was our pumpkin observations! We are so thankful that we were able to get 4 pumpkins to use for our observations! The kids had a blast digging into them!

The First Thanksgiving

Awesome Autumn

Wow! Today we had a totally awesome autumn day! We have been reading this book "Awesome Autumn" for the past couple of days! It is a great science read aloud that has sparked some amazing conversations between my firsties! Friday we discussed "why do leaves change color?" and "how do leaves know when it is time to fall off the tree?" We had responses like "the leaves change colors to match the season, they are old." Some more great responses were "the earth is spinning and the leaves can't hold on, there is more gravity in autumn that summer so it pulls the leaves down, the leaves lose their grip and let go." I LOVE hearing all of their thinking and reasoning behind it. Of course we learned the real answers to these questions...see if your kiddos can explain it to you :) Do you know why leaves change color in the fall?

Jackson and Xan started a great discussion about what happens after the leaves fall onto to ground.  Jackson was convinced that the leaves provided a blanket layer of protection from rain water over the dirt underneath. Xan said that there was no way that rain water would stay on top of the leaves because water is a liquid and liquid can make itself skinny to get through the cracks. Seriously a great discussion! Both boys were so sure that their theory was right so...we had to test it out today!!!!

 

First, we went outside and collected as many leaves as we could fit into a gallon size plastic bag.

They had a BLAST with this part of the project! They were so observant of the leaves that were  falling off the trees and the different ways leaves were changing colors! It was a perfect day for this activity!

 

When we got back to class we got out a Tupperware container. On the bottom we put paper towels to represent the "dirt". We squeezed a few drops of food coloring around the paper towels thinking that IF the paper towels got wet the colors would spread!

Before we started the kids had an opportunity to change their thinking...some kids did and some were reassured that their thinking was right!

  Then we used a spray bottle full of water to be the "rain". Everyone got a chance to make it rain on our little forest floor!

 After we sprayed the leaves really good we wondered what would happen to the water that was sitting on top of the leaves if we let it sit for a few minutes! Sophia explained that the water would evaporate (unbelievable!) and Mackenzie explained gravity might pull it down...so we decided to give our little experiment time to rest. We waited 10 minutes and then came back to check on our leaves. MOST of them were DRY! Amazing results! We pushed back the leaves to check on our "dirt"...it was soaked and all the food coloring drops had spread together! Jackson decided that Xan's thinking was right :) They shook hands and we THANKED them both for the great discussion that opened the door to a fantastic learning opportunity for our class!

Great job boys!

 

 

Happy Halloween!

Goodbye October! We had a fabulous time at our annual school literacy parade and spooky centers! All of the kiddos got to celebrate their favorite book characters and parade around our school parking lot. Mr. Strickland announced our school literacy goal this year of 20 Accelerated Reader Tests per child. We have LOTS of work to do :) Check out these cute book characters!

 

Miss Nelson...and Mrs. Viola Swamp

 Spooky Nails!!

GOOEY GOOP PLAY TIME!

  Our Expert GOOP experimenter...Mr. Stoddard!

 Spooky snacks and Monster Punch!

 What's in the bag?...Frankenstein toes, goblin eyes, skeleton bones, witch fingers, ogre warts and mummy brains!!

 Frankenstein was a popular choice at the face painting station!

What a GREAT day! Thank you so much to all of the parents that were able to send items in and volunteer their time to make our day special and run smoothly! The kids had a blast! BOO!

 

Text to self connections

This week our class is working on text to self connections!  Today we read The Recess Queen together while talking about text to self connections. Then the cute little kiddos went off to listen to The Recess Queen in their iPads. Their goal today was to pause the book when it reminded them of something from their schema. They had to document their data from the text and their schema to explain their connection! I was blown away! These guys and girls rocked it!