Classroom update

It's been a busy last few weeks here in the classroom, but we managed to squeeze in a bit of a short update here to keep everyone up to speed of what's been going on with the Red Snails.  

We got a new group of spelling words for the first week.  This week's words are:

1.  horse

2.  birds

3.  since

4.  ever

5.  heaven

6.  satin

7.  associative

8.  community

9.  organism

10.  ascend

11.  arrest

12.  problem

13.  complete

14.  piece

15.  told

16.  penguin

17.  commutative

18.    ecosystem

19.  reproduce

20.  arena

21.  room

22.  new

23.  listen

24.  children

25.  long

Trouble words from last week:

1.  early

2.  neutral

3.  abundant

4.  canopy

5.  nutrients

6.  resist

7.  curtain

New vocabulary words for this week are:

1.  Arrest:  To hold or capture.

2.  Ascend:  To go up or climb higher.

3.  Arena:  Center stage or platform.

For part of the science lesson this week, we learned about Venn Diagrams.  You can pick up a worksheet for Venn Diagrams HERE!

We read two more chapters in The Reptile Room this week.  Things are really getting interesting with the orphans now.  You can keep up with what book we are on from month to month HERE!

Another part of our science lesson this week was learning, observing, and recording how ants work and function within an ant farm.  There were will be more weeks of this, but placing them in their ant farm and observing them, and recording the data is this week's lesson.   (Worksheets we used this week)

You can pick this worksheet up HERE!

You can pick this worksheet up HERE!

For history, we covered facts about George Washington and learned some interesting things about him.  (Worksheets used this week)

Grab this worksheet HERE!

Grab this worksheet HERE!

For a nice change of pace from school work and activities, we decided to treat Skylar to a trip to the LEGO store to pick up a few LEGOs for his collection.  It was a nice break from work, and school for all of us.  You can read more about his LEGO adventures HERE!

This week we took a test on the trouble words from last week and then got a new list of spelling words.

After the test on the trouble words the new list was given and the missed words were added back in for another week.

The words for this week are:

1. associative
2. community
3. organism
4. neutral
5. nutrients
6. bridal
7. dental
8. gerbil
9. nasal
10. postal
11. longer
12. rain forest
13. population
14. inverse
15. climate
16. hemisphere
17. taiga
18. legos
19. top
20. ship
21. across
22. today
23. during
24. short
25. better
26. best 
27. however
28. low

We also worked on Homophones......(Words that sound the same, but have different meanings and spellings)

We also got three more new vocabulary words for this week.

• Assist:  To help.

• Attempt:  To try.

• Attentive:  Full focus, or alert.

We read two more chapters in The Reptile Room, only leaves two more to go before the book is finished.  You can follow along with our reading books HERE!

In science last week we observed the ants in the ant farm, also looked at the inside of the ant hill and how the ants operate.  We also learned the basic of an ant.  This week we dig a bit deeper into the ants and learned a bit more details with their habitat and their bodies.  (Worksheets used this week)

Grab this worksheet HERE!

Along with ants this week for science, we also covered the facts about Venus.

For math this week we went over rounding to certain place values.  We've been working with rounding larger numbers to the 100s place.

We also went to see the Easter bunny during this time as well.

We also colored some large Easter eggs just for fun.

Stay tuned for more updates from the Red Snail Classroom.

Classroom Update (February 10, 2013- February 21, 2013)

For the two weeks of January 27-February 7- We took two weeks off in the Red Snail Classroom.

Monday (February 10, 2013):

• Spelling:  This week we had the same spelling list as from the week of January 20.  Due to the snowy weather and a few missed days, I felt that covering these words again would be a good idea.

1. apron
2. become
3. bully
4. cannon
5. compensation
6. composite
7. deposit
8. didn't
9. door
10. easy
11. friends
12. heard
13. landform
14. muffin
15. order 
16. poison
17. prime
18. pumpkin
19. red
20. sure
21. tropical
22. usually
23. wildfire
24. apparent (vocab)
25. annual (vocab)
26. appropriate (vocab)

Vocabulary:  The vocabulary words for this week are:

1.  Appropriate:  Acceptable or suitable
2.  Apparent:  Clearly visible.
3.  Annual:  Every year.

Reading: We read another chapter in "The Reptile Room" of "A Series of Unfortunate Events."  We are not on Chapter six and will pick up and read onto Chapter seven next week.

Writing:  For wiring this week, seeing that Valentine's Day is on Friday, we decided to do some Valentine worksheets.  The worksheets we used are so themed based that it made it super fun to be able to work in a holiday theme this week.  The worksheets we used can be snagged HERE, HERE, and HERE!  You can also get all the worksheets in a booklet HERE!

Art:  For art this week, we decided to give a new coat of spray paint to Skylar's old nursery letters for his room.  They got a coat of red paint to cover up the blue paint that was given to them when he was younger.

Letters before.

Letters after.

Tuesday:  (February 11, 2013)

Today we decided to move a radio into the classroom.  This stereo-system is so old, but works well in the classroom for some background tunes when we are bored of silence.

Science:  We studied Venn Diagrams and learned about Earth facts to add to our study of the solar system.

For the Venn Diagrams we did this project HERE!

For the Earth booklet we downloaded an entire book geared around the Earth.  You can pick this booklet up HERE!

The planets that hang in our classroom window

Social Studies/Geography:

Our state we've been working on is Texas.  We have been on quite the travels around Texas.  A few of the resources we used to learn about this great state are:

1.  Which Way USA:  A monthly subscription that mails booklets for each state to your door.  You also can go online with your pass code key-chains and travel the state to a much greater extent.

2.  Education.com's endless supply of worksheets on the great state of Texas.

History:

For history we have been picking a president every week and learning just a bit more about them.  This week we picked George Washington (The first president of the United States).

We have done a few activities on our own, but have also utilized some great resources and worksheets online, as well.  You can pick up some learning tools for George Washington HERE, and HERE!

Wednesday (February 12, 2013)

Math:

Probability and Data:

Thursday (February 13, 2014):

Week Review

Friday (February 14, 2014):

End of Week Test

Monday  (February 17, 2014):

No School: President's Day.

Tuesday (February 18, 2014):

Spelling:

Vocabulary:

Reading:

Writing:  We practiced a bit of our penmanship today on a dry erase board.  The cursive writing of Skylar's name is getting better.

Science: Parts of the heart.

We also had some outside time where slug eggs were found.  http://forums.gardenweb.com/forums/load/pests/msg0417551926441.html

Social Studies/Geography

History

Wednesday (February 19, 2013)

Thursday (February 20, 2013)

Friday (February 21, 2013)

Classroom Update (January 13-January 24)

Here is another two -week update from the Red Snail Classroom!


Monday (January 13, 2014)

• Spelling: New Spelling list was given.  This week's spelling words were:

1. taller
2. tallest
3. smarter
4. smartest
5. fresher
6. freshest
7. smaller
8. smallest
9. happier
10. happiest
11. paragraph
12. lion
13. oil
14. men
15. biggest
16. funniest
17. longest
18. largest
19. brightest
20. widest
21. bigger
22. big
23. alert
24. analyze
25. ancestor
26. compensation (trouble word from last week)

• Vocabulary:  We got three new words for the vocabulary this week, which are:

1.  Alert:  Warning
2.  Analyze:  Look something over
3.  Ancestor:  Family from the past.

• Reading:

We read another chapter in "The Reptile Room" from "A Series of Unfortunate Events."  You can snag your own copy of the book HERE, to keep up with the Red Snail Reading List.  You can also see what books we are on in the classroom by visiting the top tab under "Red Snail Reading List."

• Writing:  For writing this week we worked on our cursive handwriting and also story prompts.
We also worked on the usage of have, has, and had.  We also touched a little on silent consonants with the words either ending, starting, or have the letters (gh, k, w, n, g, b, and p) in them.

• Art:  For art this week we colored our paddles to use in P.E.  Skylar's favorite color is red, so of course the paddles are now red.  Look for this later in the week to be used with P.E.

Tuesday (January 14, 2014):

• Science:  In Science we are starting to break down the planets.  We are currently on Mercury and learned a lot of fun facts about the planet as well as the phases of the moon.

• Social Studies/Geography:  We are currently learning about South American animals and Skylar chose the Toucan to do his research on.  More on this next week.

• History:  We studied a lot about Richard Nixon this week.  We started on him last week and have now finished up with everything we need to learn about him.  He was a very interesting man, that's for sure.

• Music:  For music this week, we learned about Kazoos and how infamous they are.  Skylar played a few notes on his gold Kazoo and we had a lot of fun with it.

You can snag a worksheet on how to play the kazoo HERE!

Wednesday (January 15, 2014)

• Math:  In Math we went over more multiplication and division problems up to 12.  Here are the ones we had this week:

• 9x6
• 4x9
• 7x4
• 11x4
• 8x3
• 4x5
• 6x8
• 5x6
• 8x4
• 6x3

For division the problems we had this week are:

• 6 ÷ 12
• 9 ÷ 99
• 7 ÷ 56
• 7 ÷ 77
• 7 ÷ 42

• Probability and Data:

Since we've had quite a foggy time here in the Valley, I possed a question to Skylar of:  What is the probability of it being foggy tomorrow?  He answered with 100% probability, and boy was he right on the money.

Source

• P.E.:  For P.E. we used the painted paddles and played badminton a little with them.  It was fun for Skylar to use something he was able to paint in class for fun with the P.E. time.

*(Library Day)*

Thursday (January 16, 2014)

*Week Review*

We did some more review on the trouble math problems and rounding for the test on Friday.

• Cooking:  Skylar opted to get pizza for cooking class and that went over with everyone just fine!

Friday (January 17, 2014)

*TEST DAY*

• Gardening:  We have started adding gardening to our plans for Friday.  This will have more added to this category as the season moves forward.

Monday (January 20, 2014)

Martin Luther King Jr.'s Birthday-No School

We took the time on Monday to talk about Martin Luther King, Jr. and we did some fun projects to celebrate him and understand him.

You can snag the worksheets we used HERE, HERE, HERE, and the color sheet HERE!

And snag the paper-doll printable HERE!






Tuesday (January 21, 2014)

• Spelling: Since Monday was a holiday, we gained new spelling words on Tuesday.  This week's spelling words were:

1. usually
2. didn't
3. friends
4. easy
5. heard
6. order
7. red
8. door
9. sure
10. become
11. muffin
12. pumpkin
13. apron
14. cannon
15. poison
16. landform
17. prime
18. composite
19. wildfire
20. tropical
21. deposit
22. bully
23. annual
24. apparent
25. appropriate
26. compensation

• Vocabulary:  This week's vocabulary words were:

• Annual (yearly)
• Apparent (clearly understood)
• Appropriate (what is acceptable)

• Reading:  We are on chapter six of "The Reptile Room" in the book "A Series of Unfortunate Events."

• Writing:  In writing this week we practiced handwriting skills with cursive letters.  We also did more writing prompts.  Week after week Skylar seems to be getting a bit more creative with these.  It's always fun to read the stories he comes up with each week.

• Art:  For art this week we did a Dixie Cup light string.  I've been seeing these all over Pinterest lately and I finally had a reason to make one.  Skylar had a blast helping me do it and it brought a bit more character to our little classroom.  What do you think?

• Science:  In Science we moved on to the next planet in line, Venus this week.  We also talked about Reference books and the information they supply in researching a certain topic.

• Social Studies/Geography:  For social studies we talked about South American and the toucan.  We also talked about the foods that come from South America.

We also covered some facts about Texas for our geography place of interest.

• History:  In history, we started on George Washington this week.

• Music: - Skylar learned to play the Kazoo this week.

You can snag this printout HERE!

Wednesday (January 22, 2014)

• Math:  For math this week, we are still going over long subtraction and rounding with different place values.  We will cover this a bit more in the weeks to come, as well.

• Probability and Data:  -

• P.E.: -

*(Library Day)*

Thursday (January 23, 2014)

*Week Review*

• Cooking: -

Friday (January 24, 2014)

*TEST DAY*

• Gardening: -

Stay tuned for another two week update in the following weeks to come.