Hesed House 2015

Over the weeks, we watched our collection grow. 

How many people can we help? We wanted to know!

We celebrated each gift as if it were our own. When giving to others, we never feel alone. 

As the final day approached, we pack and counted, sorted and stacked. 

Our spirit for the holidays never seemed to lack. 

Now it was time for the car to be packed. 

We filled it with holiday spirit, just like the presents in Santa's sack!

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays from

 Room 200. 

Week in Review

December is a very busy time of year and Room 200 is no exception. 

We had many exciting project and activities begin this week. 

Hour of Code was a great activity for us to begin this week. I asked the students to think critically about a few apps we were going to review and decide what they liked, what they didn't, and what they would change. We reviewed and participated in 5 ways to code.
1. Bee-Bot app
2. Kodable app
3. Tynker app
4. Lightbot app
5. No-Tech Coding

The students worked in pairs and teams to discuss these apps.

Mrs. Olsen joined us for some no-tech coding fun! More no-tech coding will happen this week. Also, keep an eye out for some more information on our favorite parts of coding. 

We also started writing opinion letters to each other through our new writing unit. 

The students are writing opinions about their favorite characters and books. We are currently focusing on a great lead that will get our readers attention and a sentence that clearly states our opinion. 

We left comments on these letters to tell the author what we enjoyed and made kind suggestions. 

Some of us even chose to write to someone outside of Room 200!

Our reading groups also worked really hard this week. One group was focusing on the skill "Drawing through the Text". The students were to pick out key pieces of information and create a quick sketch to help them remember. The goals is to be able to speak confidently about a learned topic. 

Check out our video to see how they did.

Drawing through the text from LBright on Vimeo.

Another one of our groups did a great job of learning about the layers of the Earth. Check out their video:

The Layers of the Earth from LBright on Vimeo.

This was also a fabulous week in our specials. Mrs. Holubecki prepared some great stations that focused on teamwork, collaboration, and gross motor skills. Room 200 always love to visit Mrs. Holubecki!

Mr. Fox's music class is also a class favorite. The kids write about his class often during our morning meeting time. As a music lover myself, I am so glad that I am in a building where the students have a passionate love of music because of Mr. Fox! Check out their most recent activity while studying the classic, The Nutcracker:

IMG_1308 from LBright on Vimeo.

We have another very exciting week ahead of us! I can't wait to celebrate the Holidays with the students this week. 

Week in Review

After a hectic and crazy November, Room 200 is ready for a productive and exciting December! We kicked off December with a week of fun and learning. 

This week, we continued to focus on plant and animals by discussing their habitats. We started with the polar, desert, and rainforest habitats. 

We spent time sketching, reading and discussing characteristics of the plants and animals and why they belonged in certain habitats.  

We even spent some time listening to sounds and trying to decide which habitat they were from. 

We also spent some time this week learning some fun new games. We started with Mystery Number and then tried a fun partner game in Fundations. 

Our Reading Groups did some major work this week while focusing on some new skills. 

This group is using Non-Fiction articles to practice a new skill called Drawing Through the Text. This skill helps you retell the important parts of a text. 

This group is taking reading fluency to a new level. They are not only practicing reading smoothly but they are learning to follow along and listen to their reading partners through a readers theater. We started with a fun Stormy Weather piece. 

Listen to it here:

Finally, this group did some major learning about fossils this week. They celebrated their learning by teaching the class how to make a fossil. This group made and tested our recipes to make sure we got it just right. 

Last but certainly not least, we had a very special visit from our Skype buddy, Mr. Berger.  He is a raptor expert (and 5th grade teacher at McDole) that we spoke to a few weeks ago about a Red Tailed Hawk that perched outside of our classroom. 

Mr. Berger has spent time rehabbing raptors and shared his stories, knowledge, and videos with us. It was great to see him in person!

This coming week will be filled with blogging, sharing our opinions, and math problem solving. 
We will also be participating in the Hour of Code this week. 

For Hour of Code info, check out these useful links:

https://hourofcode.com/us
https://code.org/


Have a great week!