Happy Halloween Everybody!
What’s Around Me?
This week, Alphas learned that it took humans hundreds of thousands of years to get to North America. They traveled on foot following food.
We laid out 10 rulers. Each inch represents 100 years. The first pencil marks where we are today…the second marks 1925…the screwdriver marks 1825…the final pencil marks when the first Europeans landed in the Southwest. The other 9 and a half rulers (or 11,400 years), North America was inhabited by the ancestors of the PaleoIndians who arrived during the Ice Age.
Alphas knew that humans, as well as all living things, need water to survive. Where was the water in the Southwest? People stayed near the water in the Southwest because their food did too. The Southwest is warm and very dry – it’s a desert region. Alphas learned that the fresh water was supplied by snow melt from the Rocky Mountains!
Alphas acting out the water cycle…water vapor evaporates, freezes as it rises, and condenses as a cloud before it falls…
The houses people lived in were made from clay. People still live in adobe houses in the Southwest. We learned that the descendants of Paleoindians are the Pueblo people. They speak different languages unique to their different Nations, but live in similar houses made of clay bricks. The people in the Navajo Nation lived in hogans – and many still do!
Alphas met two famous artists from the Southwest, Helen Cordova and Maria Martinez.
We had a lot of fun “wedging” the clay to smash out any tiny air bubbles!
We tried our hand at making coil pots like Maria Martinez!
…and storyteller dolls like Helen Cordova!
Alphas learned that it was a lot of hard work to keep a body healthy back in the days before H.E.B.. Children didn’t go to school; they worked alongside their families and neighbors, hunting and farming, building tools, and making fabric. When they played, they had to make their toys with the materials they could find. We learned how to make a cool toy that the children of the Zuni Nation call a Po-ke-an, made with clay and cornhusks. They played games that helped them become agile hunters.
Alphas making their own Po-ke-on
Having fun with moving targets!
In Math…
Ms. Kim’s Mathletes…
We did a lot of “bundling” this week. We learned that counting by 10’s is a time-saver! We played “Die + 10” – wow – it is SO easy to add ten to numbers! We played “Some Went Hiding” to practice finding “missing numbers” as we build our fact family knowledge. We played “Race to Top” for sums to 7! Whew!
Ms. Emma’s Math Wizards…
Explored the 100’s chart! First, the students had to organize and find a home for each number…
After reviewing the many patterns that make up our hundreds chart, we put our knowledge to the test when playing “hidden numbers”! One student looks away while their partner hides a couple of numbers in the hundreds chart. The student then uses their number pattern recognition to find the hidden numbers!
The hidden numbers continue, but this time, instead of a hundred chart, the students use skip-counting cards!
More games with “monster snatch,” where students subtract their rolled number from 100…
Lastly, spooky skeletons made our place value practice more fun when they put 1’s, 10’s, and 100’s blocks together in irregular shapes!
In ELA…
Ms. Kim’s group…
We dove into nonfiction by exploring a variety of books that teach us. Alphas thought the authors wrote them because they like special things they know a lot about. Maybe if they share their knowledge with us, WE will care about these things too. We built rhyming words with short “a” and “i.” We added so, no, and go to our list of high-frequency words, and our early-finishers challenged themselves with “copy work!”
Several friends are determined to write all of Mr. Shakespeare’s “Double, Double” poem!
Ms. Emma’s group…
Continued working on nonfiction stories by writing our very own “How to make a sandwich”! We learned the importance of detailed steps when Ms. Emma made a nut butter and jelly sandwich VERY strangely…Then we wrote the corrected steps and all enjoyed a sandwich of our own!
Later in the week, students did more lowercase/uppercase letter matching and lowercase letter writing practice…
Our form line drawing book continued, this week with zig zags!
We learned our “floss” words and how funky double consonants can be with wonderful student created word lists.
To end the week, we had a bit more candy corn fun when practicing putting spaces in between our words.
And enjoying our little readers in the cooler weather!
In Other News…
Happy Birthday SUSIE!!! Thank you for the cupcakes, we sure loved celebrating your special day :)
Recess was full of costumes!
A HUGE thank you to the Delta and Epsilon classes for throwing a wonderful Halloween carnival!
Sword battles…
Scavenger hunts..
Witch hat ring toss..
Bowling…
Pin the tail on the black cat…
Pumpkin crafting…
It was soooo fun to see former Alphas performing!
We LOVE hanging with our hosts!
HEY! THERE’s Waldo – hiding in our room!
Hanging clean clay mats out to dry…all in a day’s work!
