This week was fish week! We started off the week by discussing the difference between an ocean and a lake. In a lake, we can find algae, sun fish, walleye, lily pads, and leeches. In the ocean, you can find jelly fish, sharks, whales, sea horses, and dolphins. We talked about the fact that an ocean has salt water and a lake has fresh water which is why different animals like in the different places. We also learned some fish facts. Fish are cold-blooded, have backbones, and breathe through gills. They have scales on the outside to protect their bodies and they swim by moving their fins. We used our fish knowledge to create a fish bowl full of fish facts. We also wrote a descriptive a story which we turned into a class book. We started out by drawing a picture of a make-believe fish. Then we wrote sentences that told what our fish looked like. Throughout the week we did several different art projects. We created a fish bowl with fish and sparkly rainbow fish.
Monday:
During reading, we were introduced to our new letter sound and letter Xx. After singing our X song, we worked on creating a list of words. Since there are not a lot of words that start with a X sound, we just worked on words that ended with the /ks/. We still created two lists. One list was words that ended with an x and the other list was words that ended with a /k/ and/s/. When we thought of a word, we had to try to take the /s/ off to see if it was a real more or if the /ks/ was “more than one”. We also completed our Xx sorting worksheet. In small group, we continued working on reading words that end with ck.
This week were are learning about fish. We started with discussing the difference between the ocean and a lake. We found out that the biggest difference between lakes and oceans. Lakes are fresh water. In it we can find algae, sun fish, walleye, lily pads, and leeches. Oceans are salt water. In the ocean, you can find jelly fish, sharks, whales, sea horses, and dolphins. We also talked about the fact that an ocean has salt water and a lake has fresh water which is why different animals like in the different places. Next Ms. Torborg gave us a bunch of picture cards. Each card had a different animal on it. We had to decide if they were fresh water or salt water animals. Finally, we uncovered some of the characteristics of a fish. (Just like when we studied penguins we uncovered the characteristics of a bird.) A fish lays eggs, has a backbone, is cold-blooded, and breaths through gills.
In religion, we discussed and colored the Fifth Stations of the Cross:Simon Helps Jesus Carry His Cross. Then we gathered as a school to reflect on each of the Stations of the Cross.
In math, we worked on measuring. We started with a story. When Ms. Torborg was at an amusement park, she saw a sign that stated you need to be this high to ride the rides. She was curious if we were tall enough to ride the rides with her. Since it didn’t saw how tall you needed to be, she used some sticky notes to measure it. It was 12 sticky notes high. Our job was to figure out if we were tall enough to ride the rides. We started by breaking up into groups. Each group received 12 sticky notes to work with. After exploring different ways to answer the question, we came together as a class to share some of the idea. We discuss some of the things that were working and some of the things that we need to change. Then we tried again. In the end, we figured out that everyone could ride the rides at the amusement park.
We ended our day by drawing a picture of a fish. We could create any design we wanted on our fish. We could have a pink and white polk a dot fish with a striped tail or our fish could have squares and circles all over it.
Tuesday:
During reading, we reviewed some of the fish facts like fish are cold-blooded or they have fins to keep them upright and move. Then we moved on to our project. On Tuesday, we drew a picture of a fish. The next step was to write about our fish. Our job was to write a description of our fish. We had to pretend the person listening to our description could not see the picture. We had to write sentences that described our fish. They could be about things that you could see like stripes or colorful or about things you can't see like friendly or mean. When we were done, we put them together into a class book.
In Religion, we discussed the Sixth Station of the Cross: Veronica Wipes Jesus’ Face. We focused on the brave act of Veronica to wipe Jesus’ face and the picture it left. Then we colored the station. We also colored the picture of Veronica in our saint book. She is the patron saint of laundry workers and her feast day is July 12th.
In Math, we were introduced to a new symbol. A few weeks ago, we were introduced to the + symbol for some, some more problems. Today we were introduced to a new symbol, -, the subtraction sign. It is the minus or take away sign. When we see this sign, we need to take some of them away. We use this sign with some, some went away problem. Together we practiced using our new symbol to solve story problems. We each had a bowl with counters in it and an subtraction symbol on a popsicle stick. As Ms. Torborg read the problem, we used our supplies to solve the problem. We ended by playing the Growing Train game. Today, not only did we need to use the unified cubes to show our answer, we also had to write our number sentence on the white board.
Wednesday:
Today is a short day, we get out of school right after lunch. Afternoon naps for everyone!
During reading, we reviewed some of the facts we know about fish like fish are cold-blooded or they have fins to keep them upright and move. Then we watched a couple of videos about fish. Together we were able to identify some new fish facts. Then we put our knowledge to good use. We created a fish bowl full of fish facts. Our fish bowl is made up of five different pages piled on top of each other. The first page will be our cover page, so we have decorate it anyway we want. On the second page, we had to write two sentences starting with “Fish are . . .”. On the next page, we had to write two sentences starting with “Fish can. . .”. On the third page, we had to write two sentences starting with “Fish have . . .”. On the last page, we had to label the different parts of the fish. Once each of the pages were done, we had to cut out the fish bowls. Then they will get stacked on top of each other and stapled together.
After computers and PE, we had lunch and then got ready to go home!
Thursday:
In reading, we played 4 in a Row with ck words. We also completed a ck word family worksheet. Then Ms. Torborg started working with us one-on-one. She was checking to see if we know our letters and letter sounds. As that was happening, we had a chance to work in small groups with the BeeBots. After dividing into groups, we each got a sight word mat, BeeBot, and code planning sheet. We had to program our BeeBot to go from our starting sight word to our ending sight word.
We also created a fish bowl. First we had to decide if it was going to be a fresh water or salt water tank. We decided that most fish tanks are fresh water. Then we had to decide what things should be in a fish bowl- sand, rocks, castles, sunken ships, treasure boxes. Ms. Torborg cut out a fish bowl outline for us. We had to create all of the things we wanted in our fish bowl. We had to keep in mind the size of fish bowl as we created our things. Everything had to fit in our fish bowl! Once we had it all ready, we put it in between two lamination sheets and Mrs. Kramer laminated them. Finally we cut around the outside of the fish bowl. It looks like our fish our are suspended in the bowl.
In religion, we reviewed the Stations of the Cross. Then we discuss the Seventh Station: Jesus Fall a Second Time and colored its picture. We also had birthday prayer with Father Jeff and Father Brian celebrating all of the March birthdays.
In math, we played the Disappearing Train Game. This game was similar to the Growing Train Game. Instead of starting at 0 and adding cubes, we started with 20 cubes and took cubes away according to the number we rolled. Along with taking cubes away, we had to write the corresponding number sentence.
Friday:
After Mass, we completed our calendar binders and then we worked on a secret code worksheet. This time all of our secret words were from the et word family. Then we read the story The Rainbow Fish. The rainbow fish bragged about his beautiful shining scales and lost all of his friends. When he visited the wise old octopus, he told him to give away some of his scales. When he did, he was happier and his friends came back. Throughout the story, we talked about how Rainbow Fish feels. He has lots of emotions. We also talked about giving things away and helping those who need it. We determined Rainbow Fish did just what Jesus wants us to do. We talked about different things we can do especially now during Lent.
Then we made a rainbow fish pictures. We each got an outline of a fish. We had to glue on different colored scales and shiny scales! Just like the end of the story.
In the afternoon, we worked with the BeeBots coding different ways for the Bee to go from number to number. We also watched the Rainbow Fish Movie. We determined it was just like the book.