We painted our wands for our Harry Potter party!

...and of course they are RAD!

Math Puzzles

We discovered it's not as easy as to cover an empty shape with polygons as we thought!

Slice of Life Stories

NeWs FoR tHe WeEk

Hi all! We've had quite the busy week as usual! We are thankful that we made it through an entire week with no delays or snow days! Yahoo!

This week, we...

• finished reading the third Harry Potter book. Most of us are kind of sad, but we just began reading The Twits by Roald Dahl and it's funny, so we'll be okay. :)
• counted money until it felt like it was coming out our ears! We've even dabbled with making change and totaling amounts.
• reviewed adding and subtracting facts and regrouping. We're doing very well with it.
• continued our Slice of Life Challenge. The challenges this week included using punctuation, writing a half page, and writing for 11 minutes without stopping!

Things to keep in mind:

• You might hear rumblings about a Harry Potter party...Kassy (Lynk's mom) and I are working on it, and we'll get you more info soon. Fun fun!
•  If you ordered spirit shirts, they should be in before Family Fun Night (Friday, April 25th) so you can wear them (let's hope it's warm enough...).
• Spring Break is April 7th-11th. School resumes on Monday, April 14th.
• We will have a Book Fair coming to school soon. Be watching for information coming home about that soon.
• I will send spelling words home on Monday for next Friday's test. I will be looking over their results from their tests today and making their lists based on today's test.

Have a super weekend! Enjoy the "warm" temperatures today...right after the snowfall this morning, right?

Mrs. O's Slice of Life

I am aching for summer.

Okay, not even summer--spring would be fine too. Warm, sunny days--anything but this grey, cold, wet mess we've had since November. What a long winter. 

Today (and really everyday, if I'm honest), I've caught myself daydreaming again of my backyard in summer. The beautiful blue sky reflected in the lake, the gentle breeze blowing that slightly stinky, familiar smell of the water in the yard, the lush golf-course-green grass grown so heartily by our underground spring (good for our yard, bad for our house!), the bright green sprouts pushing up through the dark, the feel of the soft dirt in the garden under my bare feet, the sound of my dogs' collars jingling as they chase ducks out of the fence, the laughs of my kids digging in the sandbox or swinging, the birds-eye-view from our treehouse, the honking of the geese, the hollow sounds of the swans, the rumble of a boat, the sound of the water gently lapping our pier....

I know it's coming. I do. 

I am forever reminding myself to live--really live--in the present, not the past, not the future...but in this case, I've given myself an exception. Living in what's to come is a must for me right now. It gives me hope that we'll celebrate once again the beauty we're surrounded with. Soon we'll be outside. We'll feel that warm, humid Indiana sunshine again...we must!

Ways to Make Your Slice of Life Longer.

To make your Slice of Life longer, you could...

• add details, like what things looked like
• use onomatopoeia
• add dialogue
• tell the setting
• tell how the person/animal/character is feeling
• use parenthesis/extra information
• add reasons why someone is doing something
• tell what happened after the main part
• add stuff that you do

Harry and Izzy

My kids and I have spent the last three weeks looking desperately for ANY possible signs of Spring. ANYTHING. The lake in our yard just begins melting, then freezes again, much to our dismay. The snow FINALLY melts enough to see the grass, then it snows more...so disappointing. 

But you can't deny the return of all our waterfowl: the ducks, geese, and cranes. Yesterday we saw our lake's two swans swimming in the only open water available to them, right near the tube where the water runs into the creek to Winona Lake. Poor babies. Ice, ice everywhere...except for 10 square feet of what I can only imagine is near-freezing cold water. Those two swans decided to make the best of their return, I suppose, by going for a little stroll across the frozen lake. I mean, why not? What else is there to do? There's no food for them, and apparently the swan weatherman that recommended they return home for Spring was wrong...it's a bit to early. 

So Ian, Brenna, and I watched them plod, plod, plod across the ice. We wondered how in the world they walked without slipping...we could tell they were walking more carefully and lightly than they normally do on the grass, almost like they knew they might just fall. And secretly, we kind of hoped the would slip, just a bit, to see what would happen (but we didn't want them to get hurt). We decided we'd name them Harry and Izzy. They love our yard anyway in the summer and spend lots of their time there, so naming them just adds to our comedy.

This week's news

Hi all! I hope you've had a fantastic week!  This week has been a busy one. Here's some things we've done:

• Mrs. Overman finished up our language assessments, so we are once again moving forward with spelling words. You should find them coming home today for next Friday's test.
• We've been working SO HARD counting money and we even began counting more than a dollar. This is something you can help with at home as well. We've been learning how to make change too. 
• We've been doing our Slice of Life Challenge this week, where we write a small "slice" (story or event) from something in our lives. We're doing well with it! You can see some of the recent postings about it this past week and last on here.

Things to keep in mind:

• Remember, spelling words came home today, so that means we'll have a test next Friday.
• If you'd like to send us more snacks, we'd love it! :)
• You can still order Spirit Shirts this week. Please contact the office if you're interested.
• Don't forget, you can always order Scholastic books on this blog. Just click the link on the right of our main page and it will take you to the place to order.

Have a super weekend!

Slice of Life Challenge: Family Slice

Slice of life

Finally outside!

News for the Week.

Hi everyone! We've had some better weather, but we still have yet to set foot outside. We're holding our breath we can maybe sneak out today for a bit!

Things to know for this week:

• I have been assessing the students one-on-one since the third trimester began this week. We are seeing some nice improvements...I think we'll see so much growth by the end of the year! That being said, we didn't do spelling words this week and we won't have them next week either. I've been spending the time I'd normally use for small group reading time and word work assessing, and will continue that through next week. I'll send home spelling words AFTER next week, so our first test of the third trimester will be Friday, March 21st. 
• You can still order spirit shirts, but they might not arrive in time for family fun night. But again, you can still order them and wear them anytime!
• We've been doing something called a Slice of Life Challenge in writing workshop this week. We've been writing small "slices" (events) that have happened in our lives. We're writing one extra minute each day, and we're working on conventions as well as things like dialogue and sentence structure. It's a nice little change from our nonfiction unit we've been working on!
• We're still studying nonfiction in reading workshop as well. It's been so neat to see the kids learning to read smarter in nonfiction. They are learning and growing by leaps and bounds. :) 
• We've been doing triple-digit addition and subtraction with regrouping this week, as well as counting money up to $2.00. We are doing GREAT! 

Things to keep in mind for the next few weeks:

• Spring Break is April 7-11. No school!
• Keep reading at home for 20 or more minutes a night, just for fun!
• We will PROBABLY be going outside next week (cross your fingers!), so please make sure your students have appropriate clothing, including snow boots. They are more limited as to where they can play outside when they DON'T have snow boots.
• We could use some more healthy snacks if you'd like to send some...big thanks to all who sent some the last two weeks. The kids sure love having a little pick-me-up in the afternoon!

Happy weekend! Enjoy the sunshine today!

Slice of Life: Day 2