It was such a treat to see the incredibly cool STEAM projects yesterday from our Middle School students.  If only my middle school days were that interesting!  Ask your child to explain to you what project they liked best.  I look forward to seeing the current Lemurs showing off their inventions someday 🙂

Assuming that the ground will eventually thaw enough to plant, we began preparations for our wheat field.  We planted Hard Red Spring wheat in a rectangular planter and will be watching it germinate and sprout over the next week.  If the weather warms up, I’ll move the planter to the front window in the hallway.

Thank you to everyone who brought in a broom for us to borrow!  We are all set for brooms now.  Don’t forget to find a plain colored t-shirt to go with our costumes.  I would like to have those by next week so that we can prepare for dress rehearsals.     Keep practicing your lines at home, the Lemurs are doing wonderful!

Monday
Math- Plus and Minus Game – Students created math sentences by rolling special dice that either added or subtracted numbers from their cube rows.
Play Practice – We practiced lining up and walking in line….possibly the hardest part of a show!
Art/REading – Intro to Vincent Van Gogh –  We talked about how artist Vincent Van Gogh used the color yellow in his paintings because yellow made him feel happy.  We read emergent readers together that featured Van Gogh’s wheat field paintings, full of vibrant yellow.

Tuesday
Literacy – Whiteboard Letters/Words – Student practiced writing cvc words on little white boards.
Art – Van Gogh Inspired self-portrait – Inspired by the portraits Van Gogh did of his friends, students used oil pastels to create a self-portrait with happy colors.
Play Practice – We practiced our lines for the play.

Wednesday
Math – Monster Squeeze Game – Students took turns picking a number between 1 – 50 on a giant number lines, other students needed to guess the number with clues “larger or smaller”  before the monsters got there first.
Read Aloud – One Grain of Rice – Students heard the mathematical folktale from India, illustrated by the amazing Demi.  A clever village girl uses her math skills to outsmart a selfish raja.
Science – Video – Bread is Life –  We learned about how bread is made from wheat grain made into flour and mixed with yeast….this prepared us for making bread on Friday.

Thursday
Guided Reading – Students read one on one with a teacher from their book bags while rest of group used Epic Books for kids.
Play Practice – Students practiced lines for the play.
Science – Planting wheat to germinate – We planted our wheat, learning about signs of germination.

Friday
Kitchen Science – Making “Kitty Rolls” – We first made a “sweet soup” for the yeast to gobble up and grow, then we created a dough, let it rise, each student formed their own little rolls, let it rise again, cooked it up and ate it!
Writing – “What makes me happy…” – Each student sounded out and wrote a list of the things that make them happy.  This list will accompany their self portraits.

We dove into practicing for our play this week!  I am always nervous every year as we begin the process of preparing for a performance.   And every year, the Lemurs astound me with their ability to focus, remember lines, and work together.  This year is no exception.   I had been working with half of the class at a time for most of this week, practicing a key scene.  At the end of the week, I brought the whole class into practice together.   I explained to them that it may not go well at first and we may need to stop and start.  But I was so wrong!  They were a seamless machine, working together like pros!  Go Lemurs!

Monday
Making Play-Doh – Using the wheat flour that we had ground up last week (supplemented by some bagged flour) we made a batch of play-doh.  I meant to send home my recipe in red folders…but I forgot!  I will do that next week.
Mixing Secondary Colors – I divided the play-doh into three giant balls and colored one red, one yellow, and one blue (primary colors).  Each student was given a small ball of each color and challenged to mix the balls to create secondary colors orange, green, and purple.  Each child went home with a complete rainbow set.
Play Practice – We practiced for play in the community room.

Tuesday
Game – Harvest Time – Family Pastimes makes cooperative board games like Harvest Time where players work together against the game instead of against each other.  They are good games for children who aren’t quite ready for competitive games.
Play Practice – We practiced for play in the community room.
Simple Machine Inspiration  – We watched this mesmerizing video 3 times to get inspiration for our big machine.  If you like this video and would like to see more, the Museum of Science and Industry has a Rube Goldberg Machine contest each year…challenging children to create a machine that will “pour a bowl of cereal”.  You can check out the machines April 21 & 22.

Wednesday
Math – Rainbow Dice -Students added the sum of dice until they completed a set of numbers
Play Practice – We practiced for play in the community room.

Thursday
Guided Reading/Epic Books for Kids – Students read from their book bags while waiting students used Epic Books for Kids.
Math – Rainbow 10s – This unit we will be focusing on ways to make 10.  This activity introduced all ways to make 10 with a rainbow connection.
Game – Old Maid – Students played the classic card game, Old Maid.

Friday
Folk Tale – Two Brothers – Using the felt board, I retold an old story from the Middle East about 2 brothers who are given wheat farms by their father.  One brother marries and has 6 children and the other brother chooses to live alone.  After they harvest all of their wheat, the brothers lay awake at night worrying about each other.  This tale has a twist…ask your child to retell you the story!
Game – Skippity – Skippity is a super-fun-rainbow-version of checkers.  Great game.
Play Practice – We practiced for play in the community room.

Grandparents’ and Special Friends’ Day is Friday, April 27

It’s not too late!  Grandparents’ & Special Friends’ Day is coming up on Friday, April 27.  Invitations were mailed last month.  Please sign up to volunteer here to help with food and drinks, escorting of guests, etc. for this very special event!

Students returned from Spring Break to a transformed classroom…this unit we will be learning about farm machines and wheat.  We will also be spending a lot of time practicing for our upcoming show on May 4th.  The Lemurs are already doing a great job!

Small Group Work this Week…

Monday
No School

Tuesday
Intro to Combines – STudents learned how large-scale farmers use combine tractors to harvest wheat.  Students then worked as a team to harvest the wheat with our classroom combine (see the previous post)
Farmstand Math = $1 bills – Student went shopping for produce at our farmstand with 10 $1 bills.  They needed to add up their groceries to make sure they had enough money.

Wednesday
Wheat Harvest – Threshing and Winnowing – We don’t have enough money in our budget for a real combine tractor, so we harvested some wheat by hand, the old-fashioned way.  We used wooden blocks for threshing and a large fan for winnowing.
Farmstand Math – $10 bills  – Prices at the farmstand went up!  Students ow went shopping with 10 $10 bills to buy their produce.

Thursday
Wheat Harvest – Grinding – We used two bricks and a lot of elbow grease to grind up the wheat berries into flour.  next week we will use the flour we made to make a batch of play-doh.
How to Harvest Wheat Book – Student made a “how to” book with the four steps needed to process wheat by hand.
Guided Reading/Independent Games – Students read with a teacher one-on-one at an individual level while waiting students played independent games and puzzles.

Friday
No School – Parent-Teacher Conferences

Winnowing with a Fan

Grinding with a Brick

Threshing with blocks