Freaky Friday

HAPPY HALLOWEEN! Today was Good Character Superhero Day! We dressed up as superheroes, and we saw a program about having good character.

Mrs. Morris gave us candy after our phonics lesson, and Reece's mom brought us good bags! Yum! Yum!

Each group completed their first word problem today. We even had the chance to begin taking pictures, but we didn't take all of them. We didn't want to publish lots of pictures in our silly costumes!!!

Thoughts from Thursday

Our favorite part of the day was this afternoon when we wrapped up our government unit by talking about laws and why they are important. After the serious part of the discussion, Mrs. Bruno showed the class silly laws that are still on the books in different states of our country. For instance, in Alabama you're not allowed to put an ice cream cone in your back pocket. Does that mean it's okay to have it in your front pocket???? You're also not allowed to flick boogers into the wind. . .Yes, we're serious!!! It's illegal to push a moose out of a flying airplane in Alaska. (Who DOES that?) In Florida, if you tie your elephant to a parking meter, you have to pay the meter as if your elephant was a vehicle. (You can't make up stuff this good!!!)

Besides the silly part of the afternoon, we began writing friendly letters to Santa's elves. Mrs. Bruno is going to mail them to the North Pole. She's done this with several classes, and the elves always write back. They're always sent back "Special Delivery" from the North Pole, and they're even COLD when they get here!!! We can't wait!!!

We're still working on perfecting our addition with regrouping using branching. We had "Branching Boot Camp" at Mrs. Bruno's round table. We also have branching homework.

Wednesday Work

Today, we played the "Jumping Game" that Mrs. Bruno made up at the beginning of school. It's a kinesthetic way to practice our math facts. We also jammed to the "Number Hustle." Our class seems to be great disco dancers. We worked on addition with regrouping using branching. Our small groups continue to work on our math project as often as we can! We're excited that each caterpillar has formed a chrysallis. We took our digital camears home this week to work more on our vocabulary dictionary. We got some great shots. Check them out on our class website under VOCABULARY DICTIONARY.

We Skyped with author Greg Tang!!!!

We did it!!! We Skyped with author Greg Tang. Many of the kids don't understand the magnitude of this, but, as I've told the children, Greg Tang is the Hannah Montana of math books. Mr. Tang is the author of several math books that I've used in my classroom for several years. We've now had the pleasure of speaking with him personally!

We asked Mr. Tang many questions. Although I am doing the typing, here are the words that your children had to say about our experience:

Edward---I was shocked that Mr. Tang wrote one of his books in only 8 days, even though he said he'd been thinking about that book for 2 years.

Reagan B---It was fun to Skype Mr. Tang because I never, ever met any other author.

Emmy---I learned that Greg Tang's favorite book he's written was Math-terpieces because he enjoyed combining a little art history with a little math.

Keaton---I learned that Mr. Tang wrote his first book when he was 40 years old.

Sebastian---I thought it was funny that he brings his laptop with him everywhere he goes. He even takes it with him to his kids' hockey games and writes while they're not on the ice.

Ethan---It was very fun because I've never Skyped with an author before.

Kimberly---I had never Skyped with anyone before, so I liked that part.

Makenzie L---It's going to be interesting when he sends us his math game. We hope it will make us even better at math.

Taylor---It was very exciting when we Skyped with Greg Tang because Mrs. Bruno says he's the Hannah Montana of math books.

Reagan P---I thought it was interesting that he told us he always begins with the rhyming part of each book, instead of the math part of the book.

Xavier---It was interesting that we Skyped because I've never talked with or seen a real author before.

Reece---I liked it when he said that he wasn't a very good writer when he was a kid. That makes me know that anyone can grow up to be an author.

Kylan---I loved it when we asked him the questions because we got to learn about him.

Makenzie W---My favorite book Greg Tang wrote is Grapes of Math.

Jordan---I learned that Greg Tang likes working with BIG numbers because most people aren't good at using big numbers. He wants to help them learn big numbers.


As you can tell, this was a very meaningful experience for your children. Mr. Tang gave us lots of tips and things to think about as we continue working on publishing our own math book. He even offered to look at some of our writing as we progress through the writing process.

We sure appreciate the time that Mr. Tang took out of his busy schedule to speak with us. We learned a great deal!!!!

Greg Tang Skype

Last Thursday's technology conference was so very interesting. It was also a little overwhelming. There are so many things that I really want to do, but the work load for our class is already more than heavy. My ultimate goal is to teach the children how to blog for parents to be able to see what we're accomplishing in class. For the time being, however, I will be the one writing our blog posts.

We were supposed to be Skyping with Greg Tang right this very minute, but he, unfortunately, had an unexpected meeting with his editor. So, I'm taking a moment to post our new information while Mrs. Morris is doing a great phonics lesson with our boys and girls.

We've postponed the Skype session until Monday morning. It's really a relief because I'm not altogether sure we were quite ready. We've worked very hard on math story problems for our upcoming book. We'll be asking Mr. Tang questions about how he starts books, as well as the problems he faces while in the midst of writing his publications.

Keep watching for more posts, and eventually posts from your own child!!!!

TETC

Today, while my students are beginning fall break, I've had the opportunity to attend our system's technology conference. The class I was looking forward to the most was the blogging class that I signed up for. I'm hoping that I can get my class involved in blogging to let parents know what students are learning and enjoying doing in class, as well as to let parents respond to students on a regular basis. We'll see how it goes. My fingers are crossed!