Monday
Art – Family Portrait as a Wolf Pack – Students used oil pastels to draw each member of their family “pack” as a wolf.
Math – Animals All Together – Number Sentences/Word Problems – Students worked out
word problems in the book Animals All Together.  Then, they created their own word problem and number sentence.

Reader’s Theater – The Three Little Pigs – Students acted out the story of the Three Lilttle Pigs

Tuesday
Read-Aloud – The Three Little Dassies – We read a version of The Three Little Pigs that takes place in the African Savannah. 
Guided Writing – Fractured Fairy Tale – Students worked together to write their own version of The Three Little Pigs and Little Red Riding Hood.  They were challenged to replace the Big Bad Wolf with a more realistic pack of wolves.  This change makes a very different story!
Math – Wolf Den Dimensions – Students used blocks to create rectangular wolf dens and then used paw prints to measure the length and width.

Wednesday
Literacy – Guided Reading – I sat with students individually and worked on literacy skills.
STEM – Build a better stick house for the 2nd Pig – Students used popsicle sticks and tape to design a new stick house for the 2nd pig.  The 2 criteria were: 1)  The house needed to go over the head of a little pig puppet.  2) The house could not fall down when our Big bad Wolf blow dryer blew it’s hardest for 10 seconds.
Read-Aloud – Little Red Sliding Hood – Another version of Little Red Riding Hood that takes place at an ice skating competition.

Thursday
STEM – Little Red Riding Hood’s Valentine Zipline Challenge -Little Red wanted to deliver a valentine to her Gramma without walking through the woods, so she built a zipline to deliver her card.  Students were challenged to use classroom materials to create a container that would hold the card and zip all the way to Gramma house.  Students discovered that the container needed to be heavy enough to pull to the end but light enough not to fall off.
Minute to Win It – Stack conversation hearts – Students had one minute to stack as many candy hearts as they could.
Valentine Exchange!

Friday
No School

Monday
Math – February Calendar
Rainforest Wrap-up and project collection
Read-Aloud – The First Dog by Jann Brett

Tuesday
Intro to New Units!
Attributes of Wolves
Valentine Studio

Wednesday
100th Day
400 Roll Ice Cream
100 thing Count, weigh & Measure
Storytelling – Little Red Riding Hood and the Big Bad Wolf

Thursday
Move-Up Day!
The Lemurs Visit Kindergarten
Storytelling – The Three Pigs and the Big Bad Wolf

Friday
Game Day – Blockus Jr.
Reader’s Theater – Acting Out Little Red Riding Hood
Read-Aloud – The Real Story of the Three Pigs

Monday
Science/Art/Handwriting – Jaguars – We learned about the top predator of the Rainforest.  Jaguars are beautiful but deadly!  With skin patterned like leaf shadows and silent, soft paw, their prey never know they are coming.
Math – What’s My Rule? – Mrs. Swanson selected certain students and then those students needed to guess what her rule was.  For example: all boys, or all students with black hair, or all students wearing purple.
Read-Aloud – Jaguar by Helen Cowcher – A cattle rancher needs to decide if he should protect his herd by shooting a stalking jaguar or respect the beautiful creature and find a different way to keep his animals safe.

Tuesday
Science/Art/Handwriting – Leaf Cutter Ants – Using scissor-like mandibles, leaf cutter ants work tirelessly to cut and collect leaf parts…but not to eat!  They use the leaf parts to farm fungus, their main nutrient source.
Math – Leaf Cutter Ants Attack the Hundred Chart – The hundred chart had a bunch of holes in it!  Students had to fill in the missing numbers.

Wednesday
Literacy – Guided Reading/Literacy Apps – Students read to me individually while other students worked independently at literacy stations.
Math – Counting/IXL & Starfall – Students counted with Mrs. Swanson individually while the other students worked independently on IXL and Starfall.
Researchers – Intro to the Wright Brothers – We learned about how the Wright Brothers played as children…they loved tinkering and building things from a very young age.  We tried playing with plastic propeller toys like Orville and Wilbur did.

Thursday
Charlie Brown Meets the Wright Brothers – We watched a video of Charlie Brown meeting the Wright Brothers at Kitty Hawk during their historic first successful flight.
Paper Airplane Challenge – Inspired by the Wright Brothers, students made paper airplanes and practiced sailing them through the classroom runway.

Friday
Auction project – portrait drawing on fabric – Part of our class auction project for the Night of Knights Auction Gala will be a quilt of student drawings.  We began working on our drawings today.
Game Day: Skippity –  Students learned to play the game Skippity, a more complex version of Checkers.
Rainforest – Chameleons – Chameleons camouflage when they are hiding and also change to a bright color when they want to be seen.