November in Review

November was a crazy, busy month that was packed with creativity and exploration. 
Here are the highlights from November:

A.H., her 5th grade friend, H.W. and B.W (not shown)  shared a very special nature discovery with us. The group discovered a Monarch Butterfly! They also shared an impressive nature binder that they have been working on. It is filled with feathers, nuts, leaves and bark. 

They graciously let us explore the binder for a few days. The students made many scientific sketches and digital representations of the items in the binder. 

We also spent time with the new books that we purchased from the Book Fair. 

In reading groups, we are working on categorizing and coding our learning while spending some time with some non-fiction texts. 

We also practiced answering questions with information from our text. 

November Writing Club was a huge success! More that 20 1st grade students (and a few grown-ups) attended!

The Global Read Aloud project ended for us this month. We were so excited to make a great connection with Mrs. Hogan's class and loved the amazing transportation project they sent us. It inspired us to design and make our own modes of transportation.

The modes of transportation theme carried over into last week's Creative Workshop. 

E. D. and A. J. chose to design and create a rocket ship using just paper and tape. 

A group of students used Google Earth as a resource to help with researching a writing topic. 

A.H. and B.W. created and began implementing a mail system for Room 222. We will be discussing that much more this week. 

Last but certainly not least, our blogs officially went public! We celebrated with a trip to the computer lab so that we could start commenting on all of the amazing blog posts.

December is upon us and I can't wait to see what the students in Room 222 will do next!