This week we celebrate St. Patrick’s Day! We started the week by examining the rainbow. We found out a rainbow is made when light passes through a prism. The prism breaks the light into different colors. We also found out that water can act like a prism which is why sometimes we see a rainbow when it is raining. We used our imagination as we wrote about what we might find at the end of the rainbow. We also wrote about a person who is worth more than a pot of gold. Finally we looked into the life of St Patrick. After watching a video about his life, we discussed how St. Patrick used the Shamrock to teach people about the trinity. Then we colored a shamrock to remind us of the trinity. On Thursday, we had a visit from Lucky the Leprechaun. We found our classroom a mess that morning and a note that he lost his shoes. As we cleaned up the mess, we found his shoes. When we got back from recess his shoes were gone and he left us a treat.
Monday:
Ms. McCann joined us for the afternoon. She is in college learning how to be a teacher.
In reading, we were introduced to our next letter and letter sound, Yy. After watching the letter video and identifying words that began with the /y/, we completed our letter y worksheet. We also explored the rainbow. We started by reading a couple of different stories about rainbows. We discovered that rainbows are created when sunlight is bent through a prism. Just like the prism we have hanging in our classroom. We also discovered that raindrop can act like prisms bending the light. Our second story was about the colors in the rainbow. They are always the same colors in the same order- red, orange, yellow, green, blue, purple.
In religion, we reviewed the first 4 Stations of the Cross. Then we talked about the 5th Station: Simon Helps Jesus Carry His Cross.
In math played a new game, The Train Game, with a partner. To play, you need a pile of unifix cubes (interlocking blocks) and two special dice. One of the die had plus and minus signs on it. The other die had the numbers 1, 2, & 3 on it. We started by reviewing what the plus (add more) and minus (take away) sign mean. On your turn, you had to roll the “signs” die and then the number die. If it was a plus sign, then you collect that many cubes. If it was a minus sign, then you had to give that many cubes back. Before your turn ended, we had to identify how many blocks we had in our train. Then it is the other person’s turn. The first person with 15 cubes wins.
Tuesday:
Ms. McCann joined us again today for the afternoon.
In reading, we were introduced to two new sight words, as & all, completed our sight word worksheets and read through our new emergent reader, Finding the Gold. As we read through our story, we tried to identify how many sentences were on each page. We had to look close for the end marks to help us.
Then we moved on to our writing project. We started by reviewing how rainbows are created. Many of us have heard that there is a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow, but nobody has ever been able to find one. Today we did a writing project about what we might find at the end of a rainbow. We let our imagination go wild. Many of us found some really silly things at the end of a rainbow. When our stories were done, we drew a picture to match our story. Then we bound them together into a book.
In religion, we reviewed the few stations of the Cross. Then we colored the Sixth Station: Veronica Wipes Jesus’ Face.
Wednesday:
In reading, we were introduced to our last letter and letter sound, Zz. After watching our video and identifying words that began with the /z/, we completed our letter z worksheet. Then we completed a short writing project. We each had to pick someone who is worth more to us than a pot of gold. Then we had to write why. When we were done with our writing, we drew a picture of our special person. Finally we cut it out and glue it together into a pot of gold.
In religion, we reviewed the first six stations of the Cross. Then we colored the Seventh Station: Jesus Falls a Second Time.
In Math, we worked on solving number stories (story problems). First reviewed the different kinds of number stories and how to solve each kind. Then we were introduced to number sentences. We worked together to write a number sentence to match our picture. We also we worked one on one with Ms. Torborg. She was checking our progress on some of the math skills we have been working on such as patterning, counting, sequencing numbers, and word problems.
Thursday:
Ms. McCann joined our class all day today.
After recess, we gathered together as a whole school via Zoom for the Stations of the Cross. Mrs. Lingen lead us as we listened to what happened at each station and said a short prayer.
Our morning was a little chaotic. There were toys and books all over the floor. We found a note explaining a the mess. Lucky the leprechaun snuck into our classroom. He came to leave a treat, but instead he left a mess. He said he got distracted by all of the fun toys and games. (I guess he forgot how to pick up after himself!) While he was playing, we lost his shoes. On the note, he said that if we found them he would leave us some GOLD! So as we cleaned the room, we were on the lookout for his shoes. We found one in the bin of headphones and the other in the magnetic letters bin. We set the shoes out to see if Lucky the Leprechaun would come back.
We started by working on some St Patrick’s day activities. First we did some math pages. Using coins and shamrocks to complete some addition and subtraction problems. We also had to complete the hundreds charts. Then we completed some reading pages. We had to write the CVC words in the box that we found in the leprechaun’s hat or pot of gold. Then we completed an I Spy game. We had to locate 10 different words in the St. Patrick’s Day picture and write them on the line. If we had time, we completed two worksheets identifying digraphs sh, ch, & th at the beginning and end of the word.
When we were at recess, Lucky the Leprechaun came to get his shoes. He left us a Leprechaun hat full of treats! We had to work together to divide out the treats.
In religion, we explored the life of St. Patrick. To start off, we listened to a story about St. Patrick. Then we watched a movie. During the movie, we colored the picture of St. Patrick in our saint book. We found out than when he was little he was captured and enslaved in Ireland. Eventually he escaped. When he got older, he determined that he wanted to become a priest to teach the people of Ireland about God.
After lunch, Mrs. McCann brought a science experiment for us to day. We created rainbows using skittles. We started by reviewing how rainbows are created and the colors we can see. Then she showed us how to create our rainbow by arranging skittles in a circle around a plate. If we put them in the correct order, it will look like a rainbow in the end. Finally, we put some water in the middle of the circle. After a few minutes the color from the skittles started to migrate to the middle of the plate. Since the colors didn’t mix, it looked like a rainbow. After we discussed the results, we got to give it a try on our own. First, we tried to recreate the results using water. Then we could try 2 more times using different liquids. We could choose from several different things including lemon juice, vinegar, dish soap, oil, and coke. We found out that everything worked but oil. And that in dish soap the colors took a long time to migrate to the middle.
Friday:
Today we continued our discussion of St. Patrick. We found out yesterday that St. Patrick went back to Ireland to teach them about God. One of the ways he did this was with a shamrock. A shamrock has three sides just like there are three persons in one God- God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Spirit. There was only one shamrock with three parts and there is only one God with three parts! To help us remember this we colored a shamrock with the parts of the Trinity on it.
We finished out our day with a Magic School Bus video about rainbows.