A Big Bite

What an incredible week we had in room 23! I was told several times, "Wow, what a great day, I don't want to go home!" Art and Poetry were our themes and it stretched across all curriculum areas. As Brendan informed us, it was National Children's Poetry Week, and we really immersed ourselves in this philosophy. We began the week in writer's workshop by painting watercolor pictures on paper bags in the style of Douglas Florian artist and , poet. We will be writing poems based on our paintings after vacation. In reader's workshop we listened to Hate That Cat, by Sharon Creech and had some very interesting discussions about how the character Jack has grown and changed from Love That Dog. We even learned some American Sign Language! In Math we have started a unit on symmetry and created art work for writing poetry. We did A LOT of drawing, cutting and creating in math this week. I can't wait to share our "Creepy Clown," poems. They even "creeped out," Mrs. Toye! In Science we have started to learn about motions in the oceans and watched some . really cool videos about rogue waves and tsunamis. In Social Studies we are learning about the Midwest. Some of us really want to see the Badlands of South Dakota and the art will continue when we create paper models of Mount Rushmore! Friday was "Rock Poetry Day," in room 23. We created visual imagery dictionaries and drew in them as we listened to our peers play their tunes. I will post a playlist later this week, but some of the poems that were analyzed were: You've Got a Friend in Me, by Randy Newman; Crazy Train by Ozzy Osbourne; Baby by Justin Bieber; Firework, by Katy Perry; Benny and the Jets, by Elton John; Fearless, by Taylor Swift; and Fireflies, by Owl City. There were some deep poems to read and analyze. In Art class with Mrs. Hess, the students created Sum-E paintings. We will write Haiku poems about these paintings. Enjoy the week off, the weather looks great!

Mrs. W