Gracyn made a beautiful multimedia landscape picture. She used oil pastel color sticks to draw a sun, clouds, a tree, and grass. To give the picture texture, Gracyn put orange glitter on the sun and cotton balls on the clouds. In the tree, she made a baby bird in a nest. Gracyn used twigs that we gathered from outside for the nest, a leaf for the bird, white feathers for wings, and 2 google eyes. Very creatively, Gracyn decided to make 2 dandelion flowers with the fluffy part of the white feathers.
Gracyn and I read two chapters from her 'Stink' book with numerous stops to talk about the many ways the author plays with words in the story, e.g. Newt York Yankees for New York Yankees. We talked about the reasons why the author chose to include those word plays. She read a Piggie book for her independent story and she read a story on Raz for guided practice. We are working to improve fluency, particularly pacing. Gracyn wrote the first details of her narrative's problem and planned for her next steps.
Gracyn and I read three more chapters of 'Stink, The Incredible Stinking Kid' and made connections to the story. She read 'I Will Surprise My Friend' for her independent story, with much better pacing. We continued our word study with open, closed and silent e syllables. Gracyn worked on the problem in her narrative and added two more sentences.
Chocolate Chip Cookies Dipped in Chocolate and Valentine's Sprinkles
Lesson Outline
Today Gracyn made chocolate chip cookies that we dipped in melted chocolate and then into Valentine’s sprinkles. She measured and mixed all of the ingredients together for the chocolate chip cookies. We then baked them for 10 minutes. Once they cooled Gracyn dipped the cookie into the chocolate and then into the Valentine’s sprinkles. They turned out beautifully!
We started with the previously learned section of "It's a Small World." We reviewed the piece's primary pattern and went over the remainder of the song. We played rhythm follow-the-leader with drums, piano and hopscotch. We also played name that tune with Disney songs, and sang the lyrics. We discussed Tchaikovsky, of whom Gracyn is becoming a fan.
Gracyn spent time from our lesson participating in a school wide birthday party for Ms. Judie. The kids all sang happy birthday, ate cake, and sat in the compliment circle. Gracyn finished a Valentine's Day themed hundreds chart mystery picture. Using a blank 100's chart, Gracyn had to color certain squares different colors to make a picture. In the end it made a heart face.
Gracyn had fun making a Valentine's and learning about Valentine's Day. She began by folding a piece of red paper in half, tracing 1/2 of a heart, and cutting it out. Then, using a hole punch we made holes all around the perimeter of the heart. Gracyn used pink and purple yarn to stitch around the heart through the holes. We used long pieces of yarn as streamers which dangled from the bottom of the heart. While Gracyn decorated her purse with stickers and heart doilies, I read Valentine's Day Is by Gail Gibbons.
Gracyn did a science experiment on candy hearts today. She wrote up a lab report using the scientific method with a purpose, hypothesis, materials, procedure, results, and a conclusion. The experiment was to see if she could tell the difference in the flavors of different colored heart sweet tarts using only her sense of taste. She put a blindfold on and did three different trials, tasting each sweet tart one at a time and saying what color she thought it was. She concluded that based on her results, she was not able to tell a taste difference in any of the colors.
Library day! Gracyn and I went to the library to select our books for the week. She chose 'Lyle,Lyle Crocodile' for our read aloud. This was a book we read previously so we looked for details that we missed the first time. We 'put on our author's glasses' and noticed the way he introduced the problem. Gracyn read 'Piggy Gets Invited to a Party' for her independent reading, nice reading. We continued our study of open, closed and silent e syllables.
