Friday, May 1, 2009

The Magic Trains:
1.) The Magic Trains read “Little Shark” by Anne Rockwell. When Little Shark was born with his 49 brothers and sisters, he was only ten inches long. His sharkskin is bumpy like sand paper. He grew into a 13 foot long big blue shark!
2.) Ms. Brook worked with each of us on handwriting.
3.) Monday we will begin to study the planets. Out letter of the week will be “U”.
4.) In music we sang our favorite train songs and learned some new songs about our Earth.

The Diener Dinosaurs:
Today the Diener Dinosaurs...
1.) Talked about '-ill' word family words! We read the poem 'Jack and Jill' and then colored and sequenced our own Jack and Jill books!
2.) Played a math memory game - we had to match addition problems to their correct answers!
3.) Had drama and music! In drama we played 'Magic Suitcase' and 'Bippity Boppity Boo!'; in music we sang and played music games like 'Bop Till You Drop' and 'Bear Hunt'!

The Mighty Dieners:
1.) During Brain Gym, we rotated through circuits where we had to run through cones and hop from circle to circle, put designs together using Block Buddies (different color and shape blocks), and Double Doodles (involves using both hands simultaneously in a slightly different manner, mirror rather than same movements. The theory is this stimulates both hemispheres of the brain at the same time, right hand stimulates and is controlled by left hemisphere and left hand is controlled by and stimulates the right hemisphere, thus practicing and improving the connections between them. This is what helps to improve ability to cross the midline and whole brain integration, which helps to improve creativity. This also helps students choose their own best lead hemisphere if they have not already.)
2.) In Art, we told a story by using pictures! We each had to draw horizontal and vertical lines to make 4 squares. We numbered our squares 1-4 (1 beginning of story, 2-3 middle of story, 4 ending of story). Our stories could be made up or real!
3.) In Math, we learned funny names for even and odd numbers! Even Steven and Odd Todd! Then we learned a cheer to help us remember the Even Steven numbers (“ 2-4-6-8…who do we appreciate…Diener!”)
4.) During Star of the Week, we learned all about CORA!!

The Golden Owls:
1.) Mrs. Robin also came in during the afternoon and did a lesson on Poetry touching on quatrains and similes.
2.) We continued with multiplication, fractions, and regrouping in math. In L.A. we are working on non-fiction books while also utilizing graphic organizers to pull out vital information from the text.

HAVE A GREAT WEEKEND!