Class Picture 2012

Parents - If you are interested in purchasing the

class picture, please make sure you mark it on your

picture order form.  Forms are due by April 5.

Bartering Day

One of our Tennesse SPIs is to distinguish between a

barter economy and money economy.  Well, what better

way to learn than by doing it.  So we held a bartering day

from my class and Mrs. Simpson's class.  They could bring

a small item from home to barter.

We had everything:  matchbox cars, necklaces.

headbands, gum, notepads, pencils, beef jerky,

cokes, drawings, and even those funny clown glasses.

Mission Accomplished!  We know bartering!

Mystery Guest Speaker

To wrap up our mystery unit, I invited in Officer 

Toungette and Officer Maples from the Waverly

Police Department to speak to us about solving

real mysteries.  These 2 gentlemen happen to have

a pretty cool connection to my classroom.  I teach

their grandson/son every day!  

WOW - love that our

local heroes could help us out with 

our "everyday" learning!

Officer Toungette sharing one of his real mysteries

in our small town.  He explained how the clues and

evidence lead them to the criminal.  He is showing a

picture of tire tracks that connected the suspect to the crime.

He did an AMAZING job speaking to the kiddos.

He said more than once how important it was for a 

good detective to be a good listener and pay attention

to the details....just like they should listen to the teacher-

that would be me.  I LOVED IT!  I could have hugged

his neck.  What an awesome message for these kids!

Here he is asking Scott (his grandson) to pick up 

a drinking glass so he can lift his fingerprints.

Lifting Scott's (the criminal's) prints from the glass.

A little assistance from Scott's dad, Officer Maples.

THANKS A MILLION GUYS!

Yes, for coming to speak to my class, but more than

that...thanks for all you do to keep Waverly safe!

Goodbye Student Teacher

Our class said goodbye to our neighboring student

teacher.  She wasn't ours all the time, but my kiddos 

enjoyed their time with Mrs. Little during Science and 

a couple of other special projects.  Thanks Mrs. Little.

My neighboring teacher (Mrs. Simpson) and Mrs. Little

Learning about President's Day

We had many questions about why we celebrate 

President's Day, so we took to the library to find out.

Why do we only celebrate G.W. and A.L.?

We checked out a ton of books on these two famous

presidents and began "harvesting" information.  The kids

then turned their info. into a graphic organizer and shared

what they learned with their classmates.  We of course

did 2 quick art projects to make our display pop!

Poetry Practice Freebie

We've been practicing poetry to prepare for
our state testing in April.

Here's a page I created to help the kiddos.
Kids "infer" the word that rhymes and goes in the blank.
They then complete the questions.
It's not fancy, but was a good intro for us.

These are my first document shares.
Please leave a comment if you use and let me know
what you think.  I hope there are no mistakes.

Poetry Practice Freebie
Poetry Practice Freebie 2

Mysteries

We've taken a break from our basal (thank goodness) and

we are working on reading groups using mysteries.

Kiddos were introduced to mysteries with the Scholastic

website, vocab, and even more ideas.  You link to it below.

Here they are practicing their vocabulary words.

They were super excited to get reading.

We read the following:

Who Cloned the President?

Jigsaw Jones and the Stolen Baseball Cards

Jigsaw Jones and the Case of the Kidnapped Candy

The Mystery of Snowday Bigfoot  (Calendar Club)

Kiddos did great reading, discussing, and searching for 

clues during the mystery read.  We even had a special visitor 

at the conclusion of our "mystery week".  

Check back soon for pictures.