April 13th, 2012

• In language arts, we practiced identifying the structure of a story.  We also worked on retelling the sequence of events on our nonfiction story.
• In math, we were introduced to a new math center called, Count and Compare Unifix Cubes.  With this center we are working on comparing quantities and counting strategies.  This week, we also learned about measuring with nonstandard units (cubes).
• In writing, we began writing "kindergarten style" poems.  This week, we focused on writing list poems and poems that have onomatopoeias in them.
• We had some great critical thinking going on in science this week.  We learned about living and nonliving things.  We were introduced to it by viewing different pictures in a power point presentation.  We thought critically about each item and if we thought it was living or nonliving.  We had to justify our answers.  By the end of the presentation, it explained the characteristics of living things.  However, some of us disagreed with how the presentation told us plants were living things.  We didn't think they fit into those characteristics.  We then had a conversation about if we thought the presentation was correct and how we would know if it is correct.  We decided to look at another source to see what the characteristics of living things are.  This time, we wanted a video and from this video, we saw that all the characteristics matched what was in the power point presentation.  The video also explained further why plants were living.  We were still a little skeptical that plants are living and have the characteristics mentioned in the power point and video.  Therefore, we have decided to do some experiments and study plants to see if they really do have characteristics of living things.
• Our community centers this week had many different plant themed activities.  One of our favorite centers is our science center where we explored dirt.  Another one of our favorite centers was our flower shop.
• Heart word of the week: said
• Special Theme of the Week: Plants