THE ONE AND ONLY IVAN
We began reading a new chapter book called The One and Only Ivan by Katherine Applegate. This book won the Newberry Award for 2013. Although this story is fiction, it was was inspired by a real gorilla named Ivan who lived at Zoo Atlanta after spending nearly 30 years in a cage at a Tacoma, Washington shopping center. We will also learn more about the real Ivan. From the book's website:
Ivan is an easygoing gorilla. Living at the Exit 8 Big Top Mall and Video Arcade, he has grown accustomed to humans watching him through the glass walls of his domain. He rarely misses his life in the jungle. In fact, he hardly ever thinks about it at all.
Instead, Ivan thinks about TV shows he's seen and about his friends Stella, an elderly elephant, and Bob, a stray dog. But mostly Ivan thinks about art and how to capture the taste of a mango or the sound of leaves with color and a well-placed line.
Then he meets Ruby, a baby elephant taken from her family, and she makes Ivan see their home—and his own art—through new eyes. When Ruby arrives, change comes with her, and it's up to Ivan to make it a change for the better.
MATH
Our work with geometry continued last week as we reviewed polygons. Polygons are 2-dimensional shapes with that follow these rules:
- Have three or more sides
- Are closed shapes
- Their sides do not cross
- All sides are straight, no curves
Below are some examples of polygons vs. shapes that are not polygons:
IF YOU LEARNED HERE GLOBAL PROJECT
Our class completed the first week's assignment in our global project based on the book, If You Lived Here. Marcus, Sebastian, Gaurav and Helena helped us create the first video using an app called Flipgrid. Everyone will have a chance to be in one of the videos. This project extends throughout the month of March and April. Although 76 schools are participating, we have been plead in a smaller cohort. We are the RED COHORT. Within our cohort, there are schools from the US, New Zealand, India, Australia, Qatar, Switzerland, and the Cayman Islands. We also completed some extra questions about our school, classroom, neighborhood, and shared the view from our window using an app called Padlet. You can see the responses here (Click the right side categories under Padlet):
http://ifyoulearnedhere.weebly.com/blog/week-1-our-schools-and-communities
If you'd like to follow along, please check out the If You Learned Here blog: http://ifyoulearnedhere.weebly.com
WORD WORK
Last week and this, we are focusing on consonants c and g that make soft and hard sounds. Last week, we practiced spelling and reading words with soft c as in circle, and hard c as in cat. The children came up with a wonderful (and long!) list of words that follow this pattern. This week, we will work on soft g/hard g (as in giant/gum). The soft/hard sounds of the consonant g follow the same rule as soft/hard c.
When c or g meets a, o, or u, its sound is hard:
cap, cave, colt, comedy, curly, cuddle
gas, gather, goblet, goddess, gum, gutter
When c or g meets e, i, or y, its sound is soft:
census, center, circle, citizen, cycle, cymbal
gel, general, giant, ginger, gypsy, gyrate
ALVIN AILEY FIELD TRIP
An email was sent earlier outlining all the details about this week's Alvin Ailey Field Trip. Again, we have a couple of extra tickets. Please let Ms. Harrison know by today if you'd like to join us. Here are some important details for everyone:
- Children should bring their regular lunches to school on Friday. A snack will be provided that we will eat on our walk to the the theater.
- Children (and chaperones) should dress for walking outdoors to and from the Metra. Warm gloves/mittens, hat, coat are a must. Right now the forecast is for temperature in the mid-40s with a chance of a “wintery mix." We will not be wearing snow pants so girls should not wear skirts or dresses. Warm pants are strongly recommended. We are leaving snow boots up to you. We want the kids to be comfortable and warm for the walk. Please check the forecast as we get closer to the date and dress accordingly.
This will be the last newsletter until we return from Spring Break. We wish you and your family a restful and relaxing break. We hope that the winter weather will be behind us when we return on March 30th!