Out and About at NIU's Stemfest

*Posts was written by students and typed by Mrs. Bright

Two Saturdays ago, 6 students from Room 222 traveled to NIU's Stemfest and it was filled with science stuff. 

STEM stands for Science, Technology, Engineering and Math.

When we walked through the door at the NIU Convocation Center, we said, "This is so cool"!

There was a lot of stuff to do there. There was so much to see, we ran out of time to see everything.

J.P. is observing a lions skull.

Here is a journey through our Stemfest experience:

J.P is demonstraiting blowing on the orange balls and the balls moved around. 

We had fun with our families and M.O. even got a plant.

This is like a big bike. We think this is call an ATV or tiny Dune Buggy. 

Many families came together and traveled through the stations.

We even got to play with Legos in the water! Sometimes big brothers can be very helpful.

Some of us got to build with magnet blocks. We also got to play with Legos.

There were some big kids that built a whole city with Legos. P.D. got to use a Lego robot to drive over large bumps.

This is a ball. If you pull it, it gets smaller. When you let go, it gets bigger. This was A.E.'s favorite part.

At one station there was a stick with a button and when you pushed the button the static would make tin foil float.

There was even a bubble DJ that played music and blew  bubbles.

It was a fun outing with families and Mrs. Bright.

And that was the end of Stemfest. We can't wait until next year!

Any Questions?

This blog post was written by the students from Room 222 who attended NIU's Stemfest. They joined our Lunch Blogging Club.

Week in Review - October 21st - 25th

We have another wonderful week in Room 222 under our belt. 

Check out our cool activities from this week:

This week, we became experts at using QR codes as an short-cut way of getting us to the websites we were hoping to visit. We used the iPad mini's as our QR reading tools.

We also continued our study of Jane Goodall with an amazing article found by our friend S.F. Using this article as our source of information, we were able to collect our thoughts on a website called Todaysmeet.com.

Here is a screenshot of our learning:

We also became expert sentence observers this week. Look at all of the amazing things we noticed in these two sentences!

We finished off our week by watching a Question and Answer video with one of our favorite Authors, Kate Messner. Kate is the author of Marty McGuire, our Global Read Aloud book. Our kiddos were so excited when she mentioned that she has two new Marty McGuire books coming out very soon!

We are all looking forward to another great week. Thanks for checking in!

Marty McGuire - The Character

We are discussing the character traits of Marty McGuire today.

Here are our thoughts:

Outside Traits:
Marty has reddish-brown hair. 
Marty has short hair.
Marty wears jeans (and emergency pants).
Marty is skinny.
Marty is a girl.

Inside Traits:
Marty dislikes school.
Marty doesn't like princesses. 
Marty likes frogs.
Marty enjoys researching animals.
Marty feels sad sometimes.
Marty has no friends.


Here is our evidence:
Marty McGuire is... because...

Marty McGuire is like Jane Goodall because she likes to study animals too.

Marty McGuire is a trouble maker because she calls people names (in her mind).

Marty McGuire is stubborn because she told her teacher she doesn't want to be a princess.

What are your thoughts on Marty?

Peek and Predict

Are you ready for a fun game called Peek and Predict?

Let's Begin!

Today the kids in Room 222 were able to use information from a cover illustration to gather predictions on our newest addition to the Room 222 Library.

Below you will find the thoughts of our kiddos. Are you thinking the same thing they are?

Initial thoughts:
"We don't know who the author is."
"It looks like it was written by a 2nd grader."

"It might be about animals!"
"It might be about trees."
"Could it be about Jane Goodall?" - Student actually got up and found a Jane Goodall Biography to show the kiddos. My teacher heart skipped a beat.

"I see jungle plants!"

"Those leaves are different!"

"We know the author!" 
"There are even more kinds of plants."
"This is a new author for us."

"It is an award winner!"

"It has the word, me."

"I see a dot, dot, dot."

"Could it be, Me... and the Jungle?"

Are you ready to see the book?

Here it is...

A Jane Goodall book!

Stay tuned for more on Jane Goodall very soon.

*pardon the pictures - taken in the moment :)

Marty McGuire - The Beginning

Now that we have officially welcomed our Global Read Aloud partner classes into classroom virtually, it is time to start discussing the book.

Our Global Read Aloud book is...

We are currently on Chapter 3 and are really enjoying the book. 

Our class has begun a "Marty McGuire is..." chart. We are interested in seeing how her character evolves as the book goes on. 

Here is our chart with our most currently thinking:

While we continue reading, we will see if our thoughts about Marty are confirmed or have changed.

The students of room 222 are also keeping Reader's Notebooks with their thoughts. Here is a sampling of today's thinking:

Mrs. Aloi and her maracas.

Marty and Veronica Grace

Marty McGuire is trying to get the frog.

Writing as Marty: "I went to the pond at recess today."

Marty McGuire scooted up to a frog. The boys found it. She caught it but she got in trouble.

In connection with our book, we also started a Jane Goodall unit.

We watched an amazing Reading Rainbow video featuring the famous researcher and gathered any text we could find to help with our research.

Our friend, S.F. found an amazing article in a magazine she had at home. Great detective work!

So...
Now for some questions:

Mrs. Del Rosa's Class,

We enjoyed reading your welcome letter on your blog. It was really cool to see the pictures of your school. We hope you are enjoying the book as much as we are. We have a few questions for you. 

1. Have you read any other books that you are connecting to Marty McGuire?
 We are making connections to both Junie B. Jones and Chrysanthemum. 
2. How hot is it in your area this week? 
It just started to get chilly here. It is in the 50's this week.


Mrs. Temple's Class,

Thank you for the welcome e-mail we got on Mrs. Bright's phone the day our internet was out. We can't wait to see some pictures of your room and area. Wefound all of our partner classes on Google Earth and your neighborhood looked interesting. We have a few questions for you.
1. Have you done any learning about Jane Goodall? If so, what facts did you find interesting?
We are interested with her study of Chimpanzees. Many of us are interested in learning more about animals because of her studies.

2. Are the houses in your area newer or older? 
We live in a very new area. The houses are new-ish and so is our school.

We can't wait to hear from you!

Mrs. Bright's Class - Room 222

Intro to Blogging: The Paper Blog

Blogging...
What is it?
Why do we do it?
Who is our audience?

These are questions that our class will  answer as we continue through our year.  To get the children excited and ready, we attempted our first blog on paper (thanks for the idea Mrs. Olsen).

We started our experience by deciding what we felt passionate enough to write about. Some students chose areas of interest like cars or princesses. Others chose topics close to home like cooking with their families. 
Once the topics for the first blogs were chosen, the students began to write. We discussed that blogs are personal and extensions of yourself. Because of this, the topics should relate back to you somehow. This was accomplished when I explained their audience... 4th grade buddies!

Before we opened our blogs up to our buddies, we opened them up to ourselves for comment. At this point in the year, our comments are starting with one specific compliment. We will progress on from there. We were able to travel around the room and visit many blogs for this project.

Once we were done with our comments, we opened our paper blogs up to the world by posting them in the hall. 

Our buddies even stopped by to comment!

It was very exciting to read all of the comments from our friends and fellow McDole students.

Our next step will be to start blogging consistently on our Kid Blog page. Our goal will be to create an educational portfolio and platform for our students to showcase their academic talents, ask questions and connect with students from all over the globe.

Stay tuned for more...

Meet Room 222 - Our Global Read Aloud Project

Welcome to our new friends from all over the United States of America and Canada! We are so excited to connect with you. 

In preparation for our introduction, we have traveled around our building and taken pictures of all of the wonderful things that make McDole Elementary a great place to be. 

Here are some of the highlights that you might see:
1. Library
2. Computers
3. iPads
4. Buddies
5. Playground
6.The Prairie
7. Our Fun Run
8. Our Reading Lounge
9. Our Gym
10. Even our Principal!

 

  Did you see them all?

To help you learn a bit more about us, we have come up with a few Top 5 lists. These Top 5 lists will tell you all about the things we are loving right now. 

Top 5... In Room 222
1. We can listen to stories on the computer and in our listening center.
2. We have pillows, bean bags, chairs and carpets for cozy reading.
3. We do Rocket Math to help us learn addition and subtraction. It is fun.
4. We have our own blogs on KidBlog and we can comment on each other's blog.
5. Sometimes we have indoor recess when the weather is bad. We play giant checkers, marble tracks and puzzles.

Top 5... in McDole Elementary
1. We have iPads and we use them for learning.
2. We are studying solids and liquid in science.
3. Our playground is fun. We have monkey bars, swings, slides, basketball hoops and a field.
4. We go to 5 Specials. We have P.E., Music, Computers, Art and Literacy.
5. Twice a month, we get FUN LUNCH! We don't have to bring our lunches and we get yummy food like pizza!

Top 5... Learning Topics
1. We will be working more with iPads in our classroom.
2. We switch 1st grade teachers for Math
3. We wrote paper blogs and our 4th grade friends commented on them.
4. We work in the Dailies during our reading time.
5. We play a game called Stuck in the Mud during P.E.. We get exercise, have fun and learn good teamwork strategies. We are also learning to run, skip, gallop and slide.


We can't wait to share more about ourselves, our blogs and our Global Read Aloud.

Out and About with Miss N. S.

I like to read books.

I especially like to read kitty books.

Now I can read even more books because I have a new library in my neighborhood.

At the grand opening celebrations, there were cookies and juice boxes. 

The grown-ups told us to open it up and put all of the books in. Then we each took one book home.

When we are finished with this book, we bring it back. You can even take another one!

Books are important to me because I like to read and I like to write. Sometimes when I read kitty books, I learn more about them.

The more books I read, the smarter I am.

To find out more about a Little Free Library for your own neighborhood, visit the website: littlefreelibrary.org

Teacher Note:
This post is a collaboration between Miss N.S. and Mrs. Bright. Pictures were submitted by Miss N.S. 
Feel free to leave Miss. N.S a comment.