Leo Lionni

Last week we reviewed story elements by working in teams to write and draw about 4 Leo Lionni books. The Hounds did a great job working in groups. Below are a few pics of the groups hard at work, the finished product, and a close up of the groups' work for the book Swimmy.

Chris, Davis, Kinley and Giselle

Lily, Angelina, Dylan, Margarita, and Braxton

Anna Rose, David, Natalie, Mason, Mrs. Lisa, and Madison

Talia, Nicole, Lola (Hunter was out the day I remembered to take pics)

"The setting in Swimmy was the ocean with his friends."

Mimio Fun

Wow!! We now have MimioTeach in our classroom. This new piece of technology has turned our white board into an interactive board. Below are a few pictures of the kids moovn' and groovn' during calendar time. The computer screen is projected onto our white board and the kids can move objects, write, and draw on the image using a stylus. Super Cool! We can't wait to learn more about it.

Mimio Fun - free slideshow

Dental Health Month

February is National Dental Health Month. We tied our study of walruses in with dental health by reading the book Tooth Trouble. This fiction book also helped us with our comparison of fiction and nonfiction books. For our science experiment, we soaked boiled eggs in coke. After a week of sitting in the brown, sugary drink, the eggs were very stained. The Hounds tried to remove the stains using toothpaste and Q-tips. They didn't have much luck!! Maybe you noticed a decrease in the begging your child was doing for soft drinks??? Our Funky Food activity for that week was "Toothy Grins". We used strawberry cream cheese to help the "teeth" stick to the "lips".

Fun With Teeth?? - slideshow dvd

Burning Money!!!

The kids were all "fired up" with this science experiment. First I soaked a dollar bill in a mixture of rubbing alcohol and water. Then I caught the bill on fire. The alcohol burned off, but didn't harm the money. You can check out this way cool experiment at http://www.stevespanglerscience.com/

Yummy Science and Math

Our first science experiment of the new year involved timing how long it took to dissolve chocolate in our mouths. Who doesn't love science!! The first method was to just hold the chocolate on our tongues. Next, we moved the chocolate piece around with our tongues, but didn't chew. The third method was to use our teeth to chew up the chocolate. We compared these to three different ways to make hot chocolate: just pouring the mix and water together, stirring the mix and water with a spoon, and using a blender to mix the powder and water.

Next, during math groups, the Hounds had to read from a menu and purchase the ingredients needed to make their own cup of hot chocolate.

Yummy Hot Chocolate - flash slideshow

Christmas Party

Thanks to all our family members who were able to attend our Christmas party. (I hope I got everyone's picture). All the Hounds had a blast. We hope your Christmas break was filled with special moments with your child(ren). We are looking forward to a year filled with love and learning.

Christmas Party - slideshows

Run, Run, As Fast As You Can

The final week of school before Christmas break was fun, fun, fun!!. We read and compared several different versions of the classic Gingerbread Man story. The Hounds worked hard preparing for their Gingerbread Man Readers Theater. This was the first time we tried a Readers Theater (students read the lines to a story written in play format) and we were blown away by how good they did. On Friday of that week, we made a giant Gingerbread Man cookie. After decorating it, the kids went out to play. While they were gone, the Gingerbread Man ran away. We had to following clues all over the school until we finally found him back in our room!! The Hounds also worked in groups to create story maps and retell one version of the story. It was a busy week and I didn't get pictures of many of the activities. We hope you enjoy a glimpse at our fun week.

Gingerbread Man - slideshows