I'm Here

Dear Mrs. Hogan's Class, 

We are so excited to connect with you again through The Global Read Aloud project. We are loving the Peter Reynold's author study. 

We finished the book I'm Here and can't wait to share our thoughts with you. 

After reading the book, we decided to think like Peter Reynolds and illustrate our powerful thoughts.

Then we decided to have a bit of fun with these illustrations and we decided to make them into paper airplanes. We worked really hard at following directions while watching the airplane video. 

We worked really hard on our airplanes. It would have been a shame not to fly them. So... we flew them. 

It was a great way to celebrate a beautiful Fall day in Illinois. 

Here are our reflections on I'm Here:

I'm Here from LBright on Vimeo.

So... Mrs. Hogan's class, 

Keep an eye on your mailbox. You might receive a fun package very soon. 

From, 

Room 222

Week in Review

Another exciting and busy week in Room 222. I can't believe it is the end of October. Where has all of our time gone?!?

One of the biggest highlights of our week was getting to write our 1st post on our KidBlog pages. We will share with you when they are ready for the world. 

In the meantime, we would love to share some other happenings from this week.

One highlight from this week was a math game that challenged us to learn the words "greater than and less than". Instructions for this game will be coming home soon.

We celebrated Kaneland Unity Day by wearing green. We also had a lot of fun with paper airplanes. Watch the blog on Monday for more information on that. 

This weeks Global Read Aloud book is Ish by Peter Reynolds. The book inspired us to make our own "ish" drawings. 

Lastly, we began introducing a new kind of technology into our reading groups this week. This group is working on synthesizing our information. They read 2 different online articles on spiders and took notes while reading. They were specifically looking for powerful words and interesting facts. 

They they worked on putting their new information together into a small presentations. Here is an example of one student's learning from this group. 

Interesting Blog Fact: Did you know that we read and celebrate each comment we receive on our blog? Leave us a comment and tell us what you think about our week. We love to hear your feedback. 

Thanks for checking in!

Experts on Solids

Please enjoy our teaching video about Solids. Listen carefully for some of our science vocabulary. 

My Movie 1 from LBright on Vimeo.

What important science vocabulary words did you hear?

Leave us a comment and let us know.

A Few Weeks in Review

It has been a CRAZY few weeks in Room 222! 

We are continuing to document all of our read aloud experiences. Our list is now much longer than one first grader.

We traveled to room 218 for some much needed "wondering" time. Mrs. Olsen borrows artifacts from the Chicago Field Museum each fall to help her 4th graders understand Illinois prairie animals. She loves to have us come in and discuss these animals. 

Check out one of our videos about our wonders:

JD and LS Wonder from LBright on Vimeo.

We also started our journey towards our own blogs. We started the process with paper blogging. Each student designed a paper blog and wrote one article to share with their friends. These articles were about something each students was proud of or enjoyed about school. 

When our blogs were done, we practiced commenting on the blogs of our friends. 

Our paper blogs now hang in the hallway so other students and teachers can view them. Mrs. Olsen's class has been commenting on our blogs too!

Next, we concluded our study of solids with teaching videos based around the solids that each student brought in. Every good teaching video requires great planning.

We will be sharing our videos with you shortly.

Lastly, we had our October Writing Club session on Friday during recess. The writers were joined by a special guest, Mrs. DeGaetano! She wrote with us the whole time!  

This coming week will be another big one. The learning never slows in Room 222!

Global Read Aloud - The Beginning

Dear Mrs. Hogan's Class,

We have been reading books by Peter Reynolds and we are excited to share our thoughts with you.

We decided we wanted to know more about you and your area, so we went on Google Earth and found your school.

We wrote down our observations of your school and neighborhood. 

Then we read The North Star by Peter H. Reynolds. It was a very serious book but we worked hard to understand it. We created a padlet wall to share with you.

Padlet Wall

A few of our friends also made a reflection video about it. 

Peter Reynolds from LBright on Vimeo.

Thank you for connecting with us. We are excited to get to know you. 

Sincerely, 

Room 222

We know all about fire safety!

*Teacher Note: This blog post was written by all of the members of Room 222. 

We learned about fire safety at the fire safety assembly in the gym. We learned about what firemen do and super cool stuff about firemen and their job.

We started in the Safe House. The fireman talked about the smoke detector. We learned about getting down and feeling the door. The fireman also talked about throwing pillows or stuffed animals out the window to let them know that we are still in the house. 

The safety point is where you go to meet your family if you have an emergency. We practiced that with the fire house too. 

Then we traveled to the learning house. We learned to never have electronics in the bath, never put a candle in your room, always feel the door for heat and you shouldn't sleep with a cigarette (Room 222 says you shouldn't even have them in your house). 

Next up is the Stop, Drop and Roll station. We practiced our stop, drop and roll techniques and made sure to cover our face while practicing. They showed us a fire and how stop, drop and roll works. 911 is the magic number. We can call 911 in any emergency. We realized that knowing our address is VERY important! Do you know your address?

Next we visited the firefighter gear station. We learn that their helmet protects their head and neck, they have an oxygen tank to help them breath and they have a mask that hooks to their oxygen tank. 

Photo taken by E.D. - Labels added by C.G.

Lastly, we explored a fire truck. It had chain saws, lots of wood pieces, fire tools, bright lights, headphones to hear the driver, a safety sled and more oxygen tanks. 

We had a awesomely super time at the fire safety assembly. Thank you for looking at our fire safety blog. We hope you enjoyed reading it. 
Love, 
Room 222

Week in Review

I don't think we could have packed one more thing into this week! I am exhausted and I am sure the rest of Room 222 is also.

First up, International Dot Day:

Love the spirit from the Sharks table!

We celebrated everything that made us special. Some of our activities included a dot scavenger hunt and a Dot Day parade to celebrate what makes us special. See if you can find these events in our video:

My Movie 6 from LBright on Vimeo.

We also celebrated Dot Day by making a new connection and Skyped with Mrs. Hogan's class in Dallas, Texas. 

As always, reading was the focus of our week. 

We celebrated our reading skills as a  few of our friends shared their hot reads with us. 

A.C. shared David Gets in Trouble. Classic!

A.H shared a popular Elephant and Piggie book, My Friend is Sad. 

Our wonder this week caught us by surprise. As we were Skyping, Mrs. Hogan's students informed us that they have a Bearded Dragon as a class pet. We were very interested in that. Then we learned that we have a Bearded Dragon expert in Room 222! J. S. informed us that he has a pet Bearded Dragon at home. So J. S. and his family sent us a picture of Desert and told us all about him. J.S. is so knowledgeable about his pet but we always research with more than one source. 

So, after we charted J.S.'s knowledge, we visited an amazing site called PebbleGo to hear from another source. The research groups used Chromebooks to help them gather this information. 

Room 222 is officially the McDole headquarters for Bearded Dragon knowledge. 

Last but not least, we had an amazing (and tiring) Fun Run. Thanks to all of the parents that came out and supported us!

Thanks for checking in!