Craig and I talked about his class and reviewed his homework.
I put a twist on the class and talked about the history of the only
Spanish-speaking country in Africa: Equatorial Guinea.

Marcos is working on the Mandate of Heaven project for the lesson on Ancient China. He will discuss how the “Mandate of Heaven” affected the a dynasty of Ancient China and also determine how it gained and ultimately lost the Mandate of Heaven. He is enjoying the assignment.

Marcos will start on the Mandate of Heaven project for the lesson on Ancient China. He will discuss how the “Mandate of Heaven” affected the a dynasty of Ancient China and also determine how it gained and ultimately lost the Mandate of Heaven.

Marcos is working on his Ancient China project. He is creating a S.P.I.C.E. chart (Social, Political, Interaction, Cultural and Economic). He is enjoying the assignment.

This morning, Danny and I reviewed the four seasons. We watched our seasons of the year You Tube video (song) from last year. Danny then identified each season in the final picture. We then watched a Brain Pop Jr. learning video about the Seasons. Annie and Moby walked us through each season (a time of year with the same kind of weather pattern). We saw: winter - animals hibernate; spring - it warms up, rains a lot, plants start to grow, and many animal babies are born; summer - the hottest time with outdoor play; and fall- leaves change and animals store food for the winter. They showed a visual example of how it takes the Earth one year to orbit the sun. We saw how the Earth tilts and we experience changes at this time. Additionally, we saw that near the equator, there is not much change (like in Florida). Danny needed less assistance with this easy level quiz and scored 5/5. We started a Months of the Year booklet in which we will analyze the months in each season. We placed an apple on the month of September and Danny drew a little boy going back to school. We then watched the Brain Pop Jr. learning video for our current season, Fall. We saw that Fall lasts from the end of September to the end of December. Trees begin to lose leaves to store energy for the cold winter. Animals begin to gather and store food for the winter. Additionally, people celebrate Halloween, Diwali, and Thanksgiving in the Fall. He scored 4/5 on the easy level follow up quiz. Danny then completed a Fall picture sort in which he discriminated between items associated with Fall and those that are not. In continuing our discussion on qualities of a good citizen, we turned our focus today on “respect”. We read two stories from The Berenstain Bears: Good Deed Scouts Help Their Neighbors by Jan and Mike Berenstain. In Honey Hunt Helpers and Mama’s Helpers, we read about how the good deed scouts help Papa Bear and Mama Bear with various tasks. We discussed how the bears were kind and helpful by doing the things they had been asked to do, without any trouble. For his interactive notebook, Danny colored his flip picture for “respect” and wrote that this means treating others how you want to be treated.

Henry continued with the unit on geography. We went over the vocabulary terms basin, piedmont, sea level, and volcano. He looked up pictures of each word on the computer, printed them out, and added them to his notebook. He cut out the definitions of each word and matched the definition to the pictures. He practiced the words and definitions on Quizlet and played a matching game where he matched each word to its definition. We also did an exercise on map skills and elevation. He looked at the key of a map and I asked him questions on the elevation and what type of landforms he would find in different places.

Henry continued the geography unit today. He took the pictures of landforms he printed out and matched them to their definitions. He glued both the picture and the definition into his notebook.

Continued .. Marcos is creating a SPICE chart for ancient China. SPICE stands for Social, Political, Cultural and Economic. Marcos enjoys using Keynote (just like PowerPoint) to complete this assignment. We will continue to use this and other applications in the future.

Danny has been very excited about learning how to tell time and is often found looking at the clock! Therefore, we tackled the Florida Studies Weekly booklet on Time. We looked at timelines and discussed past, present, and future. In our follow up activities, we looked at a calendar and found dates and marked them based on specific directives. We spent a lot of time working hard on a timeline for Danny's day. We worked to sound out words and develop the completion for the following sentences: past - When I woke up, I (got my clothes on); present - Now I am (working); and future - Later today, I (will go watch football). I was very impressed with how well Danny was hearing the sounds to spell the words today. While he made spelling errors, his work was more on target with phonic associations (for example: mi for my). Next, we watched a Brain Pop Jr learning video on Time to the Hour. The video explains the hour and minute hands. We saw the various ways to write time using words and numbers and saw different examples of time to the hour on the clock. Also, we saw that there are 12 numbers on the clock, but 24 hours in a day, so the times are repeated each day. Danny scored 4/4 on the follow up easy quiz. Additionally, we read the book, The Berenstein Bears Visit the Firehouse, by Mike Berenstain. The bear family visits a family member who works at the firehouse. We learned about the hook and ladder truck, how they exit the firehouse, and all the parts of the firehouse. We added firefighter to our community helpers’ interactive notebook page and Danny wrote that they "put out fires".

This morning, Danny continued discussing qualities of a good citizen. We read the book, The Most Magnificent Thing by Ashley Spires. We talked about that magnificent means awesome or very fantastic! In this sweet story, a little girl wants to invent the most magnificent creation. She works and works but encounters challenges along the way, however she never gives up, demonstrating perseverance. We added the flip character for perseverance to Danny's interactive notebook and he wrote "Keep trying even if it is hard." We read an article in the Time for Kids student magazine about Kid Heroes. We read about how kids are working to help others by performing such activities as raising money to help animals, donating books, and organizing a beach clean-up. We discussed the various reasons of why it is important to clean up the beach. We saw pictorial representation of a class participating in a clean-up project at school. We completed the activities which inquired about the times they performed the tasks. Danny scored 3/3 on this activity. Finally, we read, Franklin's Neighborhood, by Paulette Bourgeois. We read about Franklin the turtle exploring the various locations in his neighborhood to decide which is his favorite. We began our "Places in the Community" interactive notebook activity in which Danny will color and write about 8 different places in the community. Today he did the fire station (writing: firefighters and fire trucks) and we did the park (A place to walk and play).