Go for it!

This past weekend my son competed in a music solo and ensemble festival.  For months he has been practicing  Weber's Concerto op 26 clarinet, a piece of music that was extremely challenging for him.  Some nights I would be awakened at midnight to the sound of him practicing.  Happily, his hard hours of work payed off and he will go to the regional festival next month.

For myself, Spring means that it is time for me to start thinking of swimming challenges.  I have my sights set on a few open water swimming events this summer, so it's important for me to start now in preparation.  Setting a goal motivates me to "just keep swimming." 

At school I see boys and girls challenge themselves all the time.  In Room F subtracting numbers is a big challenge for some people and for others it's "easy peasy lemon squeezy."  For some, writing one sentence in our journal is a challenge. But each week I see more and more students write longer and longer journal entries.


It's fun and exciting to see what you can do, when you challenge yourself.  

As Dr. Seuss wrote, "You're off the Great Places!
Today is your day!
Your mountain is waiting.
So...get on your way!"

Have you ever challenged yourself?  
What is your biggest challenge?

Our Open Air Market

Our Open Air Market

March

March

In March the wind blows down the door

and spills my soup upon the floor

It laps it up and roars for more!

Blowing once, blowing twice

blowing chicken soup with rice.

                     written by Maurice Sendak

South America and Rainforest Facts

Pen pals in the news

The latest edition of California Educator has a great article on pen pals and guess what... we are in it !

Here are some more pictures from the day when the article writer and photographer came to our classroom to visit.

What do you like about writing to your pen pal?  What have you learned about them?

Skip counting and music class... oh my

In math we have been practicing skip counting by 2's, 5's and 10's.  Today we watched a fun music video about skip counting . 


We also had our music class this afternoon, thanks Mr. Debach, we love your class!

100 Days Smarter!

Happy 100th day of school!

We had a great day of reading about 100th day of school and writing about what we would do with 100 dollars.

Then after we washed our hands we made a special derdnuh snack.   (Derdnuh is hundred spelled backwards.) We carefully selected 10 pieces of 10 different snack items.  

(10 +10+ 10+10+10+10+10+10+10+10 =  100   

OR   10* 10 =  100)

We finished the day by making 100's hats and writing about what can do now compared to 100 days ago!

HAPPY 100TH DAY OF SCHOOL!

Amazon Rainforest

Today our cruise ship landed in South America.  

We read about this fabulous, diverse continent.  Listened to rainforest sounds and then drew rainforest pictures as groups.

What do you want to learn about South America?  Do you know any facts about South America?  

Do you think it will be different than Antarctica?

I have a dream...

Gingerbread fun!

Yesterday morning we had our chilly, winter concert.  We rocked!!

We continued with our holiday fun by reading about the gingerbread girl.   Then we created our own gingerbread people.

We enjoyed tasting yummy gingerbread men and we graphed where we took our first bite

Last, we graphed whether or not we like gingerbread cookies..... Hmm.... I think the answer was a resounding YES!

What part of the gingerbread cookie did you eat first?  Why do you think you chose that part??