Week 5 in Review

Week 5 was a big week for us in room 119. Can you believe it? We read for TWENTY MINUTES STRAIGHT! Mrs. Doran was so excited, she took us outside and did that cartwheel that she promised us. And because of Mrs. Rachner's comment on the blog, she handed Emily the camera to take a video! The only problem was the video didn't work... The first one taped after the cartwheel and the second one was of the ground... so, just picture those Olympic gymnasts, imagine Mrs. Doran's head on them... it was pretty much the same picture!

Week five also brought October and we learned about EEKK! But EEKK is not something you would say if a giant spider sat near you, it is how we sit when we are reading with a partner. We sit, Elbow, Elbow, Knee, Knee. This is great because we can share a book and talk so quietly that we don't disrupt other pairs of students. There are many ways to partner read and we will continue to learn about this in the coming weeks. So far we are doing really great! Mrs. Doran thinks that we are fifth graders trapped in first grade bodies because we are such great listeners and learners!

This week we celebrated our friend, Lourdes' birthday! She brought in a safe snack and goodie bags for us. If we have a birthday coming up, make sure you let Mrs. Doran know. To help you, she posted a copy of the birthday snack information here on our classroom blog. She also posted other important information about homework and added a new question this week. So cast your vote! Tell us your favorite part about Halloween (It's ok if you aren't in our class, we love that you are reading!) and leave Mrs. Doran a comment. You can also feed our visiting bat, Bradley, a fly while you are here. (He was the winner of the last poll.) Don't forget to feed Rocky too, he loves to eat almost as much as we do!

Speaking of eating, Mrs. Doran brought in four varieties of apples for us to taste. We tried a Gala, a Fuji, a Golden Delicious and a Granny Smith. Then we tallied our favorites. Most of us liked the Golden Delicious apple the best! Here are some pictures of us tasting the different kinds of apples, but first... did you know that there are over 7,500 different kinds of apples? We did, because we read it in a book this week!

We also illustrated our very own apple book! It is coming home in our Everyday Folder today. Don't throw it out! Keep it in a safe place so that we can read it again and again. Mrs. Doran will be sending a lot of books home for us to keep and practice with. More of this in the future...

Most of us remembered our apples from home, but thankfully Mrs. Doran had some extras for those who forgot. We tallied the colors of the apples we brought in and then made a bar graph showing our results!

Next we did some painting! Mrs. Doran cut the apples in half (a horizontal cut if you are looking at an apple sitting on a table) and we learned that if you do that, you will see a star! Many of us had no idea that an apple looked like this if you cut it this way (Did you?)! We also noticed when she cut into the different apples that the seeds looked a little different. Many of us were saying that we were going to save our seeds and plant them in our yards to grow apple trees. Don't be surprised if you see one sprouting in the spring!

Painting was a huge mess, but a lot of fun! We used poster tempera paints wish made clean-up easy! Did you know that you can use these types of paints to paint on windows too? Mrs. Doran told us that her kids paint pumpkins on their windows each year which is a lot of fun and easy to clean (just water and perhaps a little soap).

Mrs. Doran told us that we would have a mystery reader today! We were all very excited. She gave us clues throughout the day so that we could uncover the mystery! We learned at the end of the day, that the mystery reader was Faith's mom! She did a great job and read us two books. We were very good listeners, so we think she may think we're fifth graders trapped in first grade bodies too! Are you interested in being a mystery reader? Just check out the Mystery Reader link on the side and see if you can come on a date not already taken. We welcome moms, dads, nanas, papas, uncles, aunties... you get the picture. We love growing our community here in the classroom!

Happy Apple Day! We sure had fun!

Here we are showing off our cartwheels!