Comparing Area

I hope that everyone had a nice Easter break!

Today we were hard at work learning about new things:  we started a new unit in Social Studies about First Nations Peoples and also began an inquiry unit on Frogs.   In Math, we finished a short lesson on Area that we had started before the holiday.

Students explored which had a greater area:  desktop or seat of a chair.  They worked with a partner to see how many playing cards it would take to cover each surface.

Students placed card on their desks to see which had a greater area:  desktop or seat of a chair.

Students lined up the cards without any overlapping!

Easter Bump Spelling Activity

Each week students practice their own spelling words. These words come from our "Word Work" and from students' own "Words to Learn " lists.   Students have a list of 6 words to study during the week.  Today they practiced their words by playing a game called Easter Word Bump with their spelling buddy. They took turns rolling a die and printing their words on the game template using a dry erase marker. If the other player already had a word written on the number rolled, they could "bump" their word by erasing it and writing their own word in the space instead!

I hope everyone has a wonderful holiday!  (Students will not be bringing home their Reading folders or Home Journals on the break.)

This week we've been working on words with the long o sound spelled oa.

(Thanks to www.thisreadingmama.com for the idea and game template!)

Visit to Luther Place

This afternoon all the grade ones walked over to Luther Place to recite a poem and sing some songs for the residents there.  Maybe your son or daughter can sing for you at home!

Water Colour Easter Eggs

Students painted beautiful Easter eggs this afternoon using water colours! First, they used a white wax crayon to make intersecting lines.  Then I demonstrated how to paint the paper with clear water and dab the water colour paints onto the wet paper.  It was very cool to watch how the colours spread and blended together!

Aren't they beautiful!

Counting Contests and Beautiful Flowers!

Students had fun this morning having Counting Contests with partners.  They used  place value charts and "tens" cups to see if they had more or less than their partner.  

This afternoon we painted our flowers.  (I'll post some pictures of the final project when they're mounted and up on the wall.)  Here are some pictures from our day.
Have a great weekend!

Student recording how many buttons he has using ten cups and place value chart.

Comparing to see who has more cheerios.

Who has more pennies?

Artists at work!

Scoop and Sort - Counting Tens and Ones

Today we did more math work with tens and ones.  Students scooped a small cup of counters (bingo chips, cubes, buttons, cheerios, pennies, two-sided counters, pasta, etc.), then counted them into groups of tens and ones.  They used their knowledge of counting by 10, 5 and 2 to determine the total amount.

Three groups of ten and six ones is 36!

Student scooping out bingo chips to take to his desk and count.