A modge podge week...

This week, we've been working so hard, Mrs. Kimbrell forgot to take a lot of pictures! :)

We began by receiving a class treat: A HAMSTER!  This sweet little girl has been at my house since Christmas, I thought when we got back from Christmas, we could begin earning a letter for each time the class (as a whole) was making good choices.  We earned H A M S T E R and on Monday, she came to our classroom! 

The kids are LOVING having her in our science center!  We even voted on her name.  Brace yourself....

The winner was...

OLAF!

They didn't even mind Olaf being a boy name, it won by a landslide! :)

The real Olaf likes warm hugs...however our Olaf does not!  She is a bit of a sassy little thing, and the kids know that our NUMBER 1 rule is to NOT touch the cage, or stick your friend inside...she will nip at you!

 While taking Macy's picture painting our sloth, I wanted to show our 100 gumball machines and "when I'm 100 years old" art projects hanging! :)

Here are the girls waiting in line to vote for our hamster's name.  The choices were "Olaf, Lizzy and Cutie."

 The boys!

We are now in phase 4 of our sloth construction: ALGAE application!

 Beth Ann measuring/cutting out green yarn to glue on our sloth for the algae.

 David is cutting yarn as well!

We painted glue on, and laid the yarn on top.

They are SUPER camouflaged! :)

January 23rd Newsletter

Here is a digital copy of our weekly newsletter!

January 23 Newsletter

Three Toed Sloth Part I

We've been working on our Three-Toed Sloth construction!  Take a peek...

We began by signing up for construction jobs.

1.  Design Crew

2.  Stuffing Crew

3. Painting Crew

4.  Habitat/Writing Crew

Next, the Design Crew met first, and made our plan!  They get to decide how big our animal will be, boy/girl, all of the materials we will use, and the details that go into planning construction!

We had to figure out how many claws to have, so Brody decided we needed to draw 4 boxes (1 for each hand/foot) and use tally marks to count 3 on each!

They are working together brilliantly!

We need 12 claws/toes!

What a great team!

I wrote out the plan (their words, of course) this first time.  For our next animal, they will understand the process more and you will see kid-writing in this step!

After Design Crew met, the Stuffing Crew got to draw out, cut out and stuff our 3 toed sloth! 

We are currently in step 3 of our construction process: The Painting Crew!  We only painted one side of the mommy sloth and baby sloth today!  Monday, we can finish up the other side!

You will be seeing more to our construction next week! :)

I've had some funny emails about how we came to choose a sloth to learn about!  When I was a lab student (too many years ago), my very first theme to teach about was THE THREE TOED SLOTH!  I had so much fun with these precious animals, it quickly became my favorite animal of all time!  When we started talking about the rainforest in the fall, I kept saying "my favorite animal is a three toed sloth."  It wasn't a very fair vote after that.  Three toed sloths won by a landslide! :)

Happy 100th Day of SCHOOL!

Today was the 100th Day of SCHOOL!!!!!!!   

We had SO MUCH fun packed into our day!  

Take a look!

WARNING: Some pictures are out of order!  For my fellow OCD friends, brace yourself, it's a little unsettling!  LOL!  I couldn't move them without starting over!

The kids LOVED walking into the door this morning! :)

 We got to add 100 hearts to a jar, 100 fish to a fishbowl and 100 pizza toppings on a yummy pizza!

 We made our 100 snack using 10 different food items!  We ran out of time to eat this yummy snack, I hope you got to enjoy it at home!

 Sorry these pictures did NOT want to post after their section! :) 

 We did table rotations (very similar to our Christmas party--wish I would have had your help again)!

The kids were able to count out 100 fruit loops and string them on a necklace!

 We stamped 100 gumballs in our 100th day gumball machines!

 We created self portraits of ourselves as a 100 year old!

 We created 100th day books (you had to do 10 different things on 10 pages to total 100 objects in your book).

 Bubble gum machines!

 Our elderly people!

I hope you enjoyed a little bit of our day!