Monday, April 23, 2012

If you're queasy, look away! Inside the eggs that died early.



Early Quitter (blood ring) --Was a white silkie

Review Irregular Verbs

Have
and has tell about an action that is happening now.
Use
have with I, you, we, they and plural nouns.

Use
has with he, she, it and singular nouns.

Use
had with all pronouns and nouns to tell about the past.

Thursday, April 19, 2012

How to Post a Comment by Sierra

Jazmine's Oral Reading

This is a video of Jazmine reading our fluency passage this week. Listen to that wonderful expression in her voice. Her fluency is awesome! Keep practicing and you can sound like her. To be a fluent reader you need to have expression, accuracy, appropriate rate and smoothness.

Tuesday, April 17, 2012



This is a video of when I candled our eggs on day 8.  It is very hard to see but if you look closely, you can tell that the chick is swimming about inside the egg.  If you look VERY closely you might even see it's beak or it's foot.  By day 8, a chick has started growing it's feathers and wings.  

Saturday, April 14, 2012

Think Win-Win!


This week, we are going to refocus on Habit 4 from the 7 Habits for Kids.  I want each of you to make it a goal to work hard on your reading log.  Each of you have a charge to read 2 AR books each night at home.  I really want you to focus on accomplishing this goal.  It will help you in several ways.  It will strengthen your reading ability.  It will increase your comprehension ability.  It will boost your AR points.  It will increase our class accuracy rate.  It really is a "win-win".  It helps you, it helps ME, it helps your class.  

Habit 4 — Think Win-Win

Everyone Can Win
I balance courage for getting what I want with consideration for what others want. I make deposits in others’ Emotional Bank Accounts. When conflicts arise, I look for third alternatives.

Two of the eggs come out


These are two of the eggs that I had to take out of the incubator.  The one on the left is a bantam (small) egg and the one on the right is a large fowl egg (Coronation Sussex).  Can you look at the pictures and tell why you think they might have died in the shell?  Both of these had blood rings which means they were developing but died for some reason.  Can you guess why?

Friday, April 13, 2012

Chick Hatch Update

I just candled the eggs left in the incubator.  They all look really good!  I will try and take a video of the candling tonight when it gets really dark.  I want all of you to be able to see the chick embryos swimming around in their shells.  Very cool :-)

Wednesday, April 11, 2012

Hi fellow hatchers!  I just thinned out the incubator.  We are down to 5 Seramas, 6 "mutts", 6 Coronation Sussex, 4 blue silkies and 4 white silkies.  Sadly, 13 eggs came out.  They all had blood rings.  Sometimes, the trip in the mail is just more than an egg can take. 

Monday, April 9, 2012

Going on a Nature Walk

We have found a new app for our ipad that will identify different trees by their leaves.  We are about to go outside to take a nature walk and collect leaves from trees around our school.  Then, when we come back, we are going to identify them and make a book.

Helping Verbs

Use has in a sentence that tells about one.

Use have in a sentence that tells about more than one.

Use have in a sentence with the word I.

Use had in a sentence that tells about one or more than one.

Thursday, April 5, 2012

Chick Hatch Round 2 is LIVE

I've gotten the first of the eggs loaded into the incubator.  They are the Coronation Sussex.  The rest of the eggs came today and they are resting for now.  I'll load them into the incubator tomorrow!  The serama eggs are tiny!!!

Studying Shapes in Math

The Rectangle

The Rectangle: A rectangle is a quadrilateral that has four right angles.  The opposite sides are parallel.


The Rhombus


A rhombus is a four-sided shape where all sides have equal length.
Also opposite sides are parallel and opposite angles are equal.
Another interesting thing is that the diagonals (dashed lines in second figure) of a rhombus bisect each other at right angles.

The Square




A square has equal sides and every angle is a right angle (90°)
Also opposite sides are parallel.

The Parallelogram

Parallelogram
Opposite sides are parallel and equal in length, and opposite angles are equal (angles "a" are the same, and angles "b" are the same)

The Trapezoid

Trapezoid (or Trapezium)
Trapezoid
Isosceles Trapezoid
A trapezoid (called a trapezium in the UK) has one pair of opposite sides parallel.
It is called an Isosceles trapezoid if the sides that aren't parallel are equal in length and both angles coming from a parallel side are equal, as shown.
Language Note: In the US a "trapezium" is a quadrilateral with NO parallel sides!

Sycamore Chick Hatch 2012


In our incubator, we have: 9 Coronation Sussex, white silkies, blue silkies and malaysian seramas.

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

Past and Present Verbs

A Chart to Help Us Practice

Now
Past
come
came
run
ran
give
gave
go
went
do
did
see
saw

Tuesday, April 3, 2012

Decorah Eagle on Live Webcam

Bailey the Sea Turtle

We were watching Winter the dolphin and we found Bailey the sea turtle in another webcam at the same marine aquarium.  Very cool!

More Irregular Verbs




Can you identify the verbs?

Today, I go to the library.

Today, Paula goes to her friend's house.

Yesterday, Marcus went to the playground.

Today, the children do their homework.

Chris does the dishes.

Yesterday, they did a crossword puzzle.

The boys see the coach.

Today, Jessica sees a runner.

Yesterday, Ben saw a soccer player.

Monday, April 2, 2012

Calendar Poem to Remember the Days in a Month

Thirty days hath September,
April, June and November;
All the rest have thirty-one,
Save February, with twenty-eight clear,
And twenty-nine each leap year.

Still studying Irregular Verbs


Verbs that tell about NOW
Verbs that tell about the PAST
Come, comes
Came
Run, runs
Ran
Give, gives
Gave

Malaysian Seramas, Coronation Sussex, Blue Silkies, White Silkies

We have ordered new eggs to hatch in our incubator.  This time, we will be hatching white silkies, blue silkies (bantam), Coronation Sussex and the world's smallest chicken which is called the Malaysian Serama.  Here are some pictures of the Seramas to show what they should look like. 



Serama roosters should weigh less than 19oz. That's 1 pound and 3 ounces.  That is like a pound of butter, a bag of coffee beans, a shoe, a book, or a bag of candy. 

*These are not our pictures, we saved them off the internet for explaination.

My Favorite Classroom Reads