What a week!

The children and I had another amazing week together, full of unique and memorable learning opportunities! Starting with an assembly with author Henry Cole, moving on to a Bookmobile visit from the Arlington Heights Memorial Library, and ending the week with a special celebration for our Veterans... This is definitely a week we'll remember!

 Ian's name was drawn out of a pool of interested classmates to spend the lunch recess on Monday with Henry Cole! Ian was so excited to show us his mouse drawings and tell us all about it when he returned to class!

 Henry Cole let us know that it often takes many tries before you find success! Here, he is sketching Celeste during our assembly on Monday afternoon!

 Our Citizenship unit has begun! The children were eager to think about the job of the United States President- and the White House- using the nearpod app on iPads with Mrs. O'Kelly in the LMC!

 We spent some time this week thinking about the brave pilgrims who boarded the Mayflower back in 1620.  The children learned about the long, dangerous journey, the cold winter, and the prosperous fall that led to the first Thanksgiving.

 Not only are the children perfecting the skill so regrouping 3 digit numbers up to 1,000 in math, but they have learned how to CHECK their work!  I am so impressed with the amazing math practice I am seeing in our classroom!

 I ALSO love to see my strong, confident, eager students volunteer to come up to the board to share their problem solving!!

 Mrs. Beane popped in to talk to the children about internet safety. 

 The tree outside our classroom window in the courtyard turned the most beautiful shades of orange, red, and yellow! We had to head out there to play in the leaves for just a minute.... :)

 Where did everybody go?!

 One of our lessons in reading this week was to notice temporal and transition words that move the story forward in time. During their independent reading, the children took note of these words and shared them with us!

 Hi Ells! It was time for us to reflect on our current reading goal, and think of a new area to focus on!

 Back in social studies... we listened to, sang, and thought about the meaning behind the words in "America the Beautiful." What an amazing country we live in!

 The children began regrouping in subtraction this week in math. They practiced picking up a ten and pretended to break it into pieces, before trading it in for 10 ones. They seemed to get the hang of it pretty quickly!

 We celebrated our Veterans at Dryden on Friday with a meaningful assembly.  Having so many veterans in our presence really brought this special day to life. We honored them with songs, poems, and a short video.

 Mr. Johansen is a veteran who came over from the Moorings for our Veterans Day assembly. We were so interested to hear about his role in the army back during his college years. Mr. Johansen was in charge of transporting soldiers and equipment, and he was responsible for maintaining 3 vehicles. We learned that not every veteran was a soldier. All veterans, however, played an important and necessary role in maintaining our country's freedom and independence!

 We paused from our daily studies to "talk turkey."  The children read through two recipes, one for cornbread and one for cranberry sauce. We noticed the types of measurements, ingredients, and items necessary when following a recipe.

 Then the children thought about the ingredients and tools they might need to COOK A TURKEY!  Yes- its that time of year! The children thought about how they might choose their turkey, how they would prepare it, and how long they would cook it.  These one-of-a-kind recipes will be available for your viewing pleasure in the hallway during parent teacher conferences.

We practiced signing in to a new math app on Friday afternoon. This app is called Zearn, and it can be used as a math resource to build and strengthen math skills. The children's log-in information can be found stapled inside their red home folder. We are asking that the children spend 5 minutes per night, or 25 minutes per week on math skill (or fact) practice.  Remember that Xtramath, IXL, and now Zearn.org are options for this practice. 

Thanks for checking in! Enjoy the rest of your weekend!