Graphing Probability

We played a game today called Counting Colors. Students had to spin a spinner that had four colors. (red, yellow, blue, and green) Whatever color the spinner landed on they had to put a color tile of that color on their work mat to make a graph.
However, each of the sections on the spinner were not equal size. So, we had a discussion about probability. 

Which color was likely to be spun? 

When would it be certain to spin a color? 

When would it be impossible to spin a color?

It is certain we learned a lot. It is likely we will play this again. It is impossible that we didn't have fun!

Virtual Manipulatives

We have been working on writing our numbers to 120!  Once we get to 100 we get a little confused on how to write the number.
For example, some of us are writing 10010 for 110 and some of us are writing 110 for 101, just to name a few of the errors that I am seeing.  So...this week we had some fun with base ten blocks, but not just any ordinary blocks!  VIRTUAL BASE TEN BLOCKS!

This website allows students to lasso groups of ten units, ten rods, or ten flats to regroup them into the next block.  For example, we have been lassoing ten units together to get a rod.  Once we had a rod we moved it over the the tens place.  This allowed me to show students why we write 120 and 1 2 0 and 10020.

Take some time to play with this site at home!  The kids will love LOVE LOVE lassoing the blocks together.

Click the picture to go directly to the site!

A class to SPOUT about!

I am so happy to have all these Wonderful Whales in my class this year...we are a perfect pod!  We sure are something to SPOUT about! 

Thanks Mrs. Gocken for your sharing your amazing art talents!  You never disappoint!

2-4-6-8 The Wonderful Whales are really GREAT! Go whales!

Impromptu Lesson

We had a nice conversion about insects today when we found this cicada outside.

I'll measure you...You measure me!

We are having so much fun practicing non-standard units of measurement. Last week we measured our friend with different non-standard units of measurement. Some of us used chips, blocks, paper clips, or even flip flops.

Building our Stamina

 What is Daily 5?

Daily 5 is what we do during Power Hour and when Mrs. Wanke is working with Guided Reading groups. Student's have pick between 5 literacy activities. (Listen to stories, Word Work, Work on Writing, Read with a Partner, and Technology)

In the beginning we learn one activity a week and practice for short chunks of time.  We slowly build up to longer chunks of time, with our ultimate goal being 20 minutes.  We call this building stamina.  

So far we have learned how to do Word Work and Listen to Stories.  Look at some of us as we build our stamina.

Listening to stories gives us an opportunity to hear fluent reading.  When we hear fluent reading it helps us to become a fluent reader too!

Listening to stories helps us to match the words with the text. It can help us learn high frequency words!

Word work helps us to become better readers of our trick words/high frequency words.

Word work helps us to become better spellers of our trick words/high frequency words.