I read "Celebrating Presidents' Day--What is a President?" We discussed some characteristics of the job and how these could relate to our lives: *being a leader *being a problem solver *being a teacher and *being a decision maker. We discussed Washington D.C. and the White House. I then read "George Washington," with the focus on his being the first president of the United States of America and gaining our independence from England. We then found Washington's picture on a dollar bill and on a quarter. Washington often wore a three-cornered hat. Analise began making her own three-cornered hat.

Analise read the story "Big Cats in the Wild." She focused on summarizing/paraphrasing, comparing and contrasting tigers and house cats, and answering multiple choice comprehension questions. She then read the story, "Blackbeard the Pirate." This led to a discussion of characteristics of nonfiction. Analise discussed the main idea, problem,and solution as it pertained to her story.

First, Analise had to "Find the Rule" by looking at boxes showing a number in one box and another number in second box that is either higher or lower than first number, for example, input - 9 output 12, and other similar examples...she finds that you have to add 3 to first number to get second number, etc. This also applied to subtraction, first number less than second number then you subtract to find the rule...p. 105. Then she completed pp. 106-7...comparing numbers using less than, greater than or equal to symbols. Next was counting money and adding/subtracting to find answer, solve word problem by adding/subtracting, continue sequence counting by 5's, and lastly, telling time by hour or quarter to or quarter after hour.

First, work on telling time by looking at "drawn" clock and tell the correct time, then draw the hands on clock to show the hour and half hour. Use number line and grid to solve addition and subtraction problems. Next, look at numbers and circle number in the one's place.
Science - I asked Analise what animal she would like to learn about and she said, "Whales." We looked on the computer and she chose the Killer Whale to study...we learned many interesting facts, such as, the oldest whale lived to be 103 years old, the largest was 32 ft. long and weighed 22,000 lbs. and they eat all kinds of fish, including sharks, and would eat moose and polar bears, if available.

We used the playground equipment to create obstacle courses. Then we used hulu hoops to practice different movements practicing coordination.

design fundamentals. Analise started her art time today by painting a seahorse, using "warm" and "cool" colors in this piece. She also started a painting using the "primary" colors, red, blue, and yellow. She is painting a picture of a hummingbird.

Phonics - readingeggs.com - Analise is doing well and is progressing through her lessons (a variety of techniques that make learning phonics more fun).
History - learning about the culture and history of China...presented in a way that a child can understand.

Today Analise made M & M cookies in honor of M & M's 75th birthday. She mixed the butter, sugar and brown sugar in the KitchenAid mixer. She then added the eggs, vanilla, and flour mixture. Once the ingredients were mixed well Analise added 2 cups of spring colored M & M's. We baked the cookies for 10 minutes. They were very yummy!

Analise was excited to talk about her trip to Disney this week. She illustrated an experience she had there of her and her mom going on a rollercoaster. She was excited to add details and realistic colors to make the Disney characters appear as accurate as possible to how they were when she saw them. She added a topic sentence to her picture. We made a singular/plural book--adding 2 to show more than one. She illustrated a picture of a bird and then inside the book she illustrated two birds and recorded the singular or plural noun underneath. She did the same for tiger(s). Analise worked on her next lesson on Reading Eggs.

Analise added a detail to her journal writing on her experience at Disney. She was so excited that she had the chance to sit right behind Mickey and Minnie on the rollercoaster ride and chose to include that as her detail. Analise read a non fiction book called Goats. She took a comprehension quiz and scored 100%. Throughout the book there were labels. Analise chose to write her own nonfiction book on Foals. She chose images on google and printed them out for her book. She learned how to add a label to each photograph describing a different feature to display. She wrote a sentence under each photograph throughout the book, describing the features of the foal. She loved this and was so satisfied with her final project! She was thrilled that she made her first book. Analise read two other books and scored a 100% on the comprehension piece of both. She completed lesson 45 on Reading Eggs.