Christopher Columbus Day

This morning we started our day by choosing jobs as "Room 4 Helpers". Some of the jobs included: Librarian, Housekeeper, Door/Light Monitor, Carpet Monitor, Attendance Monitor, Calendar Monitor, Teacher's Assistant, and Line Leaders. Each job has two students who will fulfill it for a week. Each Monday we will shift jobs, hopefully giving each child a chance to perform each task. This is an excellent opportunity for students to take ownership in the classroom, as well as having an outlet for their energy and desire to participate.

In Reader's Workshop we practiced Private Reading (meaning that each child chooses a book and reads his/her own story without talking or sharing with others.) At the next Readers Workshop we will learn the proper way to partcipate in Shared Reading. Then students will have a chance to share what they have "read" with a partner.

Before Recess we began our Christopher Columbus/Explorer project. It involved coloring and cutting and pasting waves, ships (Nina, Pinta, Santa Maria) into a portrait. While we worked on the project we had conversations about what explorers are. Some compared them to pirates, but we discussed that pirates were looking for treasure and explorers were looking for land.

At Recess, Mrs. Mathur brought treats for the students and afterwards we were able to sing her Happy Birthday and present her with a card before she read up Alexander and the Wind-Up Mouse. The children LOVE having guest readers, so this was quite a treat for all of us.

We continued more work on our Columbus project, doing a directed draw/cut of the sun and clouds for our projects... as students finished, they colored an illustration of Christopher Columbus and traced the phrase "In 1492, Columbus sailed the ocean blue."

We also had Library today. Mrs. Williams read the class If You Give a Pig a Pancake and we returned/checked out new library books. Again this week books will stay in your child's cubbies. Once we get into the routine and get the go-ahead from the librarian, students will begin to bring their borrowed books home.