Thanksgiving Week

I can't believe it has been so long since I last posted.  The last few weeks have flown by!  Looking back at the pictures, I can see that it is because we are DOING LOTS OF STUFF!!!!  Also, we did have an unexpected "no-snow" day off.

Most of the week, the kids are separated into grade levels for Math.  However, one day a week, we do Mixed Age Math.  This is an opportunity for the kids to work on different math skills, and are not limited by grade level.  Kids work at their level, regardless of grade.  The idea is that kids start to take ownership for what they already know, and what they need to learn.  Right now, we are focusing on Money.  Kids work in stations and every week, we talk about knowing ourselves as a learner....and knowing what we need to move our learning to the next step.

Here, B and K are writing their own money story problems that they will turn into a book.

The children are playing a game called Rich Robots where they have to exchange coins of equal value.

 N and L are working on subtracting money from $1.00

This trio are working with flashcards.  They are looking at the amount, and trying to guess what coins make up that amount.

Here, S is shopping for several items, adding up her total and figuring out how much money she will need.

This group, is finding different combination of coins to make $1.00.

Moving on to writing, we discussed ways to make out writing more interesting to our readers.  One technique that writers have is using VIVID VERBS in their writing.  First, we talked about what is a verb.  The kids are working on their very own anchor chart.

We also made VIVID Turkeys to show all the interesting and colorful verbs in our world.

Highlight of the month was our Walking Field Trip of Downtown Portland.  Of course, we picked one of the coldest days of the year to go!

The class was led by the Urban Tour Group.  A volunteer group of people who do these tours in the fall and spring.  This field trip focused on the history of downtown Portland, and what the early city looked like.

Skidmore Fountain

Looking at the Willamette River.

We went into the first station to see an old horse drawn steam fire engine.

These big doors are all over downtown Portland.  They were made this way, so people could drive their horses and wagons right into the building.

Artifacts from the early settlers discovered during a renovation.

Portland had many floods in the early years before the flood wall was built.  Here is one of the flood high water marks.  Poor S would be underwater!!!!

We went into the Embassy Suites downtown, but it used to be Portland's premere hotel when it was the Multnomah Hotel.  You can see much of the orginal beauty.

One of our lovely guides!

 The kids get a fiest hand look at the tunnels that run under our city.  The Shanghai Tunnels are legendary in Portland's History.  Apparently, it was very difficult for ship captains to find men to go on long sea voyages.  An unsuspecting young many may go into a tavern for a drink, and may have a little too much.  He would be taken into the tunnels and put on a ship. Often, these men would wake up to find find out there were already out to sea.

If it hadn't been so cold, we would have had lunch downtown....but, we ate in our classroom instead. The kids LOVE this!!!!

We read about the Great Fire and how much of our city it destroyed.  The kids each made a comic strip to show the events of those 24 hours.

We have also been finishing up our book club books.  The kids learned how to meet in a group and talk about their book.  They also shared the artifacts they made to record their thinking.

 When we finished out books, we worked on make a Diaroma of our book.  Each student thought of their favorite part of the book to represent.  First, we worked on the background.

Then, we added 3-D elements to make the story come to life!

On the back, we wrote a summary of our book so that everyone would know what it is about.

Whew!!!!  If you stuck it out to the end of this post!  Good for you!  I will back after Thanksgiving with more to report.