Last Friday we still had one friend who had nothing in his cup. I had planted my pinto bean seed from our field trip that finally germinated and had told him that he would use that plant for his observations instead of the seeds the rest of the class was using. It was this little bitty shriveled up bean and I wasn't exactly sure it would SURVIVE, but I wanted him to have something! When we came in today we had two wonderful surprises! Not only did my bean survive, but I really am growing a bean stalk! That thing is HUGE considering I just planted it on Thursday! It was well beyond the top of the cup and by far the biggest plant under the light! Plus our grass was really long and the other plants are all doing great. How fun for the students! And.. the lonely little cup with no plant is no more! There was a teeny tiny little seedling standing proudly there showing it's face to the world! Yay! Everyone was able to observe their plants and make notes about any changes. Tomorrow we are going to do more with the plants but not observe the little ones.
In math we are working on counting money and understanding how to make change. There really isn't a lesson in the book about it so I spent the weekend going through websites and trying to find different manipulatives to address the needs. I printed a lot of different things and came in early today to laminate and get them ready. When it came time for math today, things went reasonably well, but I don't think the students are grasping the idea that they should make their change to be the least or fewest coins possible. We are working on it though- they will get it!
In writing I had them write a friendly letter. We had talked about friendly letters last week. I showed them a video about it, gave them samples, and had them do a couple of drafts. I had originally planned on having them write a friendly letter to a penpal that the teachers from another had organized but this idea was tabled for a while. Since I had already set them up and taught them this concept, I decided to keep going with it and have them write to someone today. They took this idea and RAN with it! I am going to offer them the idea of giving the letters they wrote to the person they wrote them to- but first I get to read them all! These letters were SO sweet! They were to show gratitude (that is our moral focus word for the month) and thank the person for something. They had to have all the parts of a friendly letter (which none of them needed additional help with- they really understood this idea!). I was walking around reading their responses and smiled many times reading what they were writing!
We were late today getting to specials. Oh- I was so disappointed! I really am working to get them to specials on time- time just goes so fast during the day!
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