Seeds!

We did some more work in Science today, as we continue to learn about plants and soils. Today, we focused on seeds. The students got to dissect Lima bean seeds (that I had soaked overnight), and separate out the seed coat, cotyledons, and the embryo (or baby plant). The students had a great time doing this, and were surprised to learn that seeds have little, mini-plants inside of them...

A good day!

We got our 20th marble yesterday for our Mystery Motivator, and we got to get free time in the afternoon today. We were playing Cops, but it got out of control. So then I drawed with a paper and some markers. - Mikayla
Today we went outside for our SLC and cleaned up garbage, and I went into the gym to get gloves. When I got out, they were done cleaning up! - Jett
In Gym, we played with balls and passed them to a partner. Then we played a game that we had a line with partners, and we were bouncing the balls back and forth. It was fun. - Mikayla
In Social Studies, we talked about cenotes. Cenotes are big holes in the ground and when it rains, the cenotes fill up with water, so people can swim and get water for drinking. It's important in Mexico, because they don't have a lot of rivers and lakes there. - Jett

My class rocks Division!

In Math class today, we continued our work on Division. We talked about how you can always make at least two Division number sentences (or 'equations') for a group of objects. We worked through a few examples on the board...

After our review, today's Division 'challenge' was for the students to see how many division number sentences they could come up with to describe the amount of Lego blocks their group was given (each table group was given a different amount). We ran out of time to share with each other (we'll do that tomorrow), but here's a peak at what the groups came up with. They totally rocked Division today!

Division

Today we continued learning about division in Math, or 'sharing into', as we often refer to it. I must say that I am quite impressed with how well the class is grasping this skill - it's amazing how when you talk about sharing to make equal groups, as opposed to simply talking about 'dividing', it seems to really come together for most 8- and 9-year olds. The students got to show off their division knowledge as they worked on a SMART Board activity this morning - here is some of their handy work!

'The Lorax' and Mexico

Today we had an SLC. We talked about Earth Day, and we watched a little short clip of The Lorax. We talked about not littering on the playground, because some of the Grade 2's saw dog poop on the playground. - Logan
In the SLC, Ms. Bell and Ms. Koth-Bull said we were going to plant trees all around our playground. She said they were going to be big. The Lorax video was kind of sad because the animals were going away, and that made me really sad because I love animals. - Kaynen
Today in Social Studies, we did a thing about countries. If you were right on the equator, then your country would be hot, and if you weren't, then your country would be kind of cold. - Logan
In Social Studies, we are starting to learn about Mexico. We were naming different places in Mexico on a map, and we saw that Canada was bigger and Mexico was closer to the equator. - Kaynen

Kidblogs

It's been great to see all of the blogging that has been going on at home during this past week. Whether it's writing posts on their own blogs, or commenting on others, there has been a lot of writing going on. It's been exciting for me to see the students not only increase their opportunities for writing, but to also learn more about them than I knew before. I highly suggest you check them out, if you have not done so already! Remember, you can find the students' blogs at http://kidblog.org/MrHoeppnersClass/. Have a great weekend, and enjoy the blogs!

A RAD Day!

It was an exciting morning at school today, as we had our spring Recess Activity Day (or RAD). RAD is where the students get a chance to become familiar with the rules and skills needed for the the different springtime outdoor activities made available to them at recess, and then practice them. Some of these different activities include basketball, skipping, ladderball, magnetic rockets (the new, safer alternative to the old-fashioned lawn darts so many of us used growing up), baseball gloves, lacrosse, 4-square, and so on. My compliments to the students of Room 18, who were, as usual, exceptionally well-behaved - bravo! Here are some photos of a fabulous morning spent outside: