Starfish Gazette- December 12, 2014

Dear Starfish Families,

I hope you are all having a wonderful holiday season.  The kids could not be more excited to come in each morning to tear their next holiday chain to help us count down the days to Hanukkah, Christmas, and 2015!

It has been an exciting time in the starfish classroom.  We have accomplished many fun holiday

activities and are looking forward to traveling to Mexico,  Germany, and India, Israel, and China to learn about various cultures and holiday traditions.  The kids will prepare on Monday afternoon with decorating their holiday passports and Holiday Around the World Journal.  In the journal the kids will record their learning from each country.  It has been fun sharing our holiday dolls and learning more about people's family history!   

 

During Math Workshop, we have been busy learning about non-standard and standard forms of measurement.  This week the kids partnered together to measure classroom items using paper clips, gingerbread men, and unifix cubes.  We have been using math vocabulary such as measure, length, width, longer, shorter, edge. Today we measured using rulers.  We measured different lengths of paper to build a paper Christmas tree.  It was a great activity for the kids and they enjoyed helping each other.   We have also been working on addition strategies to build our math fact power.  This week we worked on our doubles facts and played two math games: Doubles Rolling and Doubles Hop.  I will send a few games home next week for you to enjoy with your family over winter vacation.  

 

We have been working hard to become experts of our 5 senses in our classroom.  Mrs. Caldwell and I have been working hard to build a new unit on the senses to allow for the kids to incorporate science talking, writing, and hands-on exploration into their learning. The kids have done various activities and experiments with our sense of sight and smell.  This week we looked at shells with our naked eye opposed to a sight tool such as magnify glasses.  The kids recorded their thinking in their science journals and began adding more detail into their science drawings.  This afternoon we had so much fun learning about our sense of smell.  I brought in various objects such as coffee, shallots, onions, cinnamon, lemon, candles, lavender, rosemary, etc. The kids explored the items at their tables with their friends.  We learned descriptive words to describe smells around us.  Rather than just saying good and bad, we add rancid, flowery, fragrant, bold, faint, and pungent to our vocabulary. Racquel brought in a great scent kit with 30 various scents such as lemon, honey, grass, mango, and rose.  I gave each group 4 different scents and they had to work together to try to figure out the mystery smells.  We put coffee beans on the table just like do in fragrance stores to help decipher between scents.  The kids had so much fun and the adults did too! :)

Here are some questions to ask your child to promote a home-school connection:

1. Can you tell me what you learned about your sense of smell?  Do you remember how many scents our noses can detect? (10,000)

2. Can you tell me about your experiment with smells and eating gummy bears?

3. Can you tell me a doubles fact that you learned this week?

4. What games have you been playing outside at recess?  When you have indoor recess, what games do you usually choose?

5. Why did you make Mr. Fosher a banner in the hallway?  

6.  Who was your mystery reader this week?  What books did she read?

7.  Who are writing to in your classroom? (Santa) What did you put on your wishlist?

8.  Can you tell me about the Hour of Code?  What is the app you used in the Maker Space?

9. What does petal of your day and thorn of your day mean?  When do you share your petals and thorns? 

10. What Holiday story have you listened to during snack time this week?  Which was your favorite?