Tuesday, November 25th, 2008

The Magic Trains:
Today we:
1.) Played a fun and visual Thanksgiving game where we had to sort different types of food and talk about what we eat during Thanksgiving.
2.) Did an experiment involving carbonated water and raisins and watched the raisins sink to the bottom and then rise to the top! This experiment has to do with buoyancy.
3.) Made an art project with different materials such as cotton balls while learning about texture.

The Diener Dinosaurs:
What a terrific Tuesday! Today the Diener Dinosaurs…
1.) Read a book called ‘The Perfect Thanksgiving’. Then we broke into our leveled reading groups and played a beanbag-toss word family game!
2.) Had science with Ms. Llacey! Today we built towers out of gumballs and toothpicks and created liquids and solids out of cornstarch and water! We also played turkey and football games in Fitness.
3.) Had a visit from Miss Melissa – we made a delicious trail mix and tomorrow we are going to make and fill cornucopias for Thanksgiving!
4.) Colored a turkey made from different shapes in math – we are going to make Thanksgiving placemats with them!

The Mighty Dieners:
1.) We did a lot of crafts for Thanksgiving! First, we colored in Thanksgiving pictures that will be hung up tomorrow during our feast! Then, Ms. Melissa came and we made Oreo Turkeys! We took Mint Oreos, split them in half and stood one half of the Oreo in the icing of the other side of the Oreo. Next, we took round Malt balls in the icing for the turkey’s head! We finished by eating our turkeys!! We also colored in pictures of feathers and a turkey head. Tomorrow, we will cut out the feathers and turkey head and glue them to a strip of construction paper to make turkey hats to wear during our feast!
2.) In Math, we worked on patterns and forming uppercase and lowercase letters. On sentence strips, we copied the pattern Aa Aa Aa Aa, BbBbBbBb, CcCcCcCc, and DdDdDdDdDd. We then stamped out the same patterns and traced over the letters with a pencil.
3.) We read a story about the history of Thanksgiving. We learned that the pilgrims left England on a ship called the Mayflower. They landed in America. The pilgrims invited the Native Americans to come have a dinner called Thanksgiving. We all told our plans for Thanksgiving and who we invite to our houses or who invited our families to their houses. We discussed the similarities and differences in what they ate at Thanksgiving and what we eat with our families. 4.) In Science with Ms Lacey, we did several hands on experiments. We put together DNA strands using gumdrops, watched the effect of putting raisins in club soda, and experimented with the feel of corn starch.
**Don’t forget tomorrow is our Thanksgiving Feast! Please send in a snack, but we will have plenty to eat for lunch! Dismissal is at 1:00

The Golden Owls:
1.) In Social Skills with Ms. Melissa we talked about teamwork and leadership while also creating a Turkey using oreos, icing, whoppers, and Mike and Ikes.
2.) In Math we are continuing with word problems using the RPSC method: Read, Plan, Solve, and Check.
3.) In Science with Ms. Lacey we did several hands on experiments. We put together DNA strands using gumdrops, watched the effect of putting raisins in club soda, and experimented with the feel of corn starch.
4.) In writing we are continuing to build our writing process. Our topic was Family and Thanksgiving, we first Brainstormed using a web and then drafted.