Reduce-Reuse-Recycle

On Monday, one student posed the question: "When is recycling not the best option?" We explored situations where reducing and reusing our use of common objects could be options BEFORE placing objects in the recycling bin.

Let's consider our clothing. What are some ways you could reduce the amount of clothing you buy and reuse clothing before getting rid of it? Post your ideas here! Let's see how many you can come up with!

Spaceheadz Online

Spaceheadz, our current read aloud book by Jon Scieszka, joins a new wave of books that are linked closely to the Internet. All the websites mentioned in the book are real sites you can visit! The characters in the book exist as real people online.

You can visit www.mrshalleyscomets.com to see Mrs. Halley's class blog and the art that Michael K and his classmates have created. At www.antialienagency.com, you can see all the costumes and disguises that Agent Umber wears, read classified AAA files and more. Major Fluffy, the classroom hamster and leader of the alien mission to Earth, has his own blog. Jennifer uploads videos on youtube. Jennifer, Bob and TJ (the class comic artist) all have their own Flickr accounts where they post photos. At sphdz.com, you can join the 8,918 other students who have signed up to become SPHDZ and even get your own SPHDZ name!

Do you want to learn more about our read-aloud book? Here's a trailer for the book from www.simonandschuster.com! The playground featured in the book should look familiar!

Our Recycling Study!

Today we kicked off our recycling study and service project. We'll spend a few weeks learning about the importance of reducing, reusing and recycling. Then, we'll be in charge of sharing what we know with all the fifth grade classes at the school and monitoring their classrooms to be sure they are recycling appropriately. Along the way, we'll be posting different articles we find on recycling on our classroom blog, as well as different projects we do and videos we produce.

Here's an article from National Geographic Kids Magazine online about water bottle pollution and whether it is better to drink water from a bottle or water from the tap. Click HERE to read the article. 

What did you learn about recycling from reading the article? Did anything surprise you or shock you? Remember that readers often have intense reactions to the texts they are reading! Leave us a comment and let us know!

DonorsChoose.org Chose Us!

Our class is certainly lucky! At the end of August, I posted a grant on DonorsChoose.org for 40 cool new books. On Tuesday, a donor chose to fully fund our class project, donating over $400 worth of brand-new books to our classroom! The books arrived today.

Look at all the great books we received! Click on any of the images to see the picture up close!

Starting tomorrow, I'll be giving some quick book talks to introduce students to the new books we've received. I'll also ask some students to do some book talks about the books since some are books that I ordered on their summer recommendations!

Which new book are you most looking forward to checking out from our library? Why? Leave a comment and let us know! 

If you need to learn how to comment on our blog, click on the "How to Comment" tab on top. 

200 Book Challenge!

We officially kicked off our 200 book challenge today! As a class, we set a goal of reading 200 books. Each book we read will be logged in the back of our Reading Log. Once we hit 200 books, we'll celebrate with a Reading Marathon! We'll wear pajamas to school, eat breakfast in the classroom and enjoy 90 minutes of solid reading. We can't wait!

Each Friday, we'll count the books we've read and watch as we get closer to our goal!

Using What We Know to Write Narrative Entries

Today we began collecting notebook entries for our first narrative writing unit. We started by charting all the strategies we've learned for generating notebook entries over our school careers.

Can you believe all the different strategies we know as writers already? We will get to choose from these strategies, any other strategies we know and all the strategies we learn as we write our notebook entries this year.

Hip Hip Array!

Today in math we began our study of multiplication, building on the knowledge we have from third grade. We searched high and low for rectangular arrays all around the room. A rectangular array is a rectangular arrangement of rows and columns. Here are just some of the arrays we found!

We found out that our Seed Ideas Chart was a 4 x 9 array. It had four rows and nine columns. 

9 x 4 = 36 spaces for ideas

Looking up, we found that the lights in our classroom are also rectangular arrays. They had 26 rows and 2 columns. 

26 x 2 = 52 sections for light

Our desks formed a simple rectangular array with 2 rows and 2 columns. 

2 x 2 = 4 desks

Here's an array that kept popping up on our Smartboard. We found it had 7 rows and 3 columns. 

7 x 3 = 21 choices. 

These are just some of the arrays we found in our explorations today. Where else do you see arrays in your daily lives? 

A Self-Portrait Study: Andy Warhol

As part of our first short social studies units, we'll be creating our own self-portraits in the style of Andy Warhol using iPhoto. Today we learned about Andy Warhol's life and got to look at some of his self-portraits.

However, there's a lot more to find out about Andy Warhol! The Queensland Art Gallery has an interactive game called "Warhol's World" that can help us learn more about Andy Warhol's life and interests. Check it out here. If you click on this link, you'll get a PDF file of an Andy Warhol activity book you could print off or try on the computer. Finally, here's a list of books about Andy Warhol that you could check out from the library if you're interested!

If you visit one of the links, feel free to leave us a comment letting us know what you thought about it. If you're not sure how to comment, click on the "How To Comment" page about and watch a short screencast that will show you how to comment on our classroom blog.

Welcome!

The students arrive tomorrow morning, and the classroom is ready! It's been lonely in the room this past week without the students. I am eager to meet the students and their families!

Here's a view of the front of our room, including part of the library and our meeting area. 

This picture is looking toward the back of the room and gives a better sense of our library and desk arrangement. 

Click on the link to see more pictures of our classroom on Flickr.