January 7, 2010

We've had a great start to 2010! The highlight of the week has been seeing everybody's reading projects from The Whipping Boy. We had lots of wonderful castles, plus some posters about rats and a book of similes. Students put a lot of effort into their projects, and they got to teach the third grade about castles when they came over to see the projects.

In reading, we are studying themes. We discusses the theme of The Whipping Boy, a short story from one of Laura Ingall Wilder's books, and next we'll read Sarah, Plain and Tall. The students got their own chance to write a story and find the theme when they drew examples of themes out of a box, then had to write a story that fit that theme.

We've also begun our unit on physical science. We're beginning by discussing properties of matter. Students brought in examples of liquids and solids, and we'll learn how to measure mass, find the volume of liquids and solids, and test to see which objects have the higher density.

In the photos above, you can see pictures of our reading projects and from a recent field trip to see The Nutcracker on Horseback.