Book Character Day

November has been a busy month! We've had a lot of fun all month long. We recently had our 1st Book Character Day, which was a blast! It was fun to watch the parad of the entire school so we could see everyone's costume and then be part of the parade to show off our costumes.

We were greeted first by the music teachers and our Flag Line.

Our very own costume winner (aka Sara, aka "Bad Kitty") was part of the Flag Line.

I was so proud of all of my creative kids and their costumes!

Our Partners in Education were nice enough to come by and judge the cosutmes.

They even brought some magic tricks with them!

Teamwork in Gold Flats and Exploring with Raisins?

I'm so happy to have a team that actually displays teamwork with everyone! A few months ago, we took a "trip" to Gold Flats where we had to establish rules for the town. I'm proud to say that everyone worked hard to decide on fair rules for everyone to follow.

Some of the citizens of Gold Flats had a dispute over some gold.

They had to present their cases to the jury.

The jury was very fair and listened very intently to all cases.

 With all the work that these smart thinkers do all the time, they need some time to just explore with food. But, of course, I had to throw in a math lesson with it by practicing dividing with raisins. It's so fun to see how everyone has a different process of thinking just to get to the same answer, even when just dividing out food!

ViPS Reading Day

Today was ViPS Reading Day at school. Ms. Pat Kumpuris came to read a classic - The Velveteen Rabbit to our class. Most of them said that they had never read the story, so it was extra special to them. After Ms. Pat read the book, she donated it along with a stuffed bunny to our "Stuff the Sleigh" drive.

A few helpful tidbits

I just added a few helpful LEARNING websites to the side of my blog. The kids (as are some parents)are always asking me for some fun game websites. Please take a look at them and let your kids have fun while playing on the computer. :)

• http://mrcpl.org/literacy/lessons/sight/index.html (This provides great reading practice and use of sight words)
• http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/ks2bitesize/ (This has fun games for both Language Arts and Math)
• www.sciencenetlinks.com/interactives/class.html   (Interactive Vertebrate and invertebrate game)
• http://www.vtaide.com/png/animalsGrpF.htm    (sorting activity)

Also, Team Dees is in 3rd place with recycling ink cartridges, cell phones, and digital cameras. I have an "inside source" that told me that we are very close to 2nd place! We have a few more weeks, so I know we can do it! If you have any of these items that you're about to discard at your office or have stuck in your drawers at home, please put my name on them and send them with your child.