Halloween Friday!

This past Halloween fell on a Friday and the kids came in fantastic costumes!! To make friday fun I created some Halloween themed lessons. One activity we did was a spooky noun sort. Students cut out nouns and glued them into the right column: person, place, thing, or animal.

The kids loved cutting and gluing all the spooky words!

Genre Units

During this year your child will participate in a year long genre inquiry unit. We began the year with the first piece of this unit: Fiction vs. Nonfiction. We learned the basics of both and created definitions for for types of text. 

This unit will also focus on academic language and vocabulary , so when your child is reading ask questions using words like setting, character, plot, and theme.

We wrapped up the first mini unit with an assessment to demonstrate a basic understanding of fiction and nonfiction. Students were given a wide variety of texts and asked to find and record 5 fiction books and 5 nonfiction books.

Students sort through leveled books and find fiction and nonfiction.

Students were able to use the readers notebooks we have been creating. These notebooks will be a source of information for the whole year.

Mustache Party!!!

In celebration of completing 3 weeks of school we had a little bit of fun and had a Mustache Party! We wore mustaches, ate Popsicles, and acted goofy! Check it out:

Homophone Memory!

Our class just wrapped up a language arts unit on synonyms, antonyms, and homophones. As a final activity the students created a list of homophones and wrote the pairs on "memory cards." This is a great way to reinforce these word pairs!

Buddy Time!

This past week our classroom had big buddy time with the 8th graders! It was so fun! We made homemade silly putty and had a bit of a chemistry lesson.

First you mix 2 oz of glue with 2 oz of water.

Stir realllll good!

In another cup mix 4 oz of warm water with 1 tsp of borax (laundry detergent I found at target)

Stir reaaalllllyyyy good!

Pour them together and immediately a reaction called polymerization occurs.....a solid forms! This solid is silly putty! Students need to mix the 2 solutions together and scoop out the solids.

EWWWWW it's messy!

Nice silly putty!

Not only did we spend time with our buddies, we created something fun together and had a great time doing it!

School Closed Tomorrow !

Hello parents and families: St Agnes will be closed Tuesday January 28th due to severe weather. Classes will resume on Wednesday .

Thank you!

Warm Fuzzy Taco Party!

Classroom management can be tough! A great tool that I use in my classroom is a "warm fuzzy jar." This lovely little creation is a great incentive for good behavior. It's easy, too! My jar is actually a clear plastic container. Next to it I have a bag of 75 little fuzzies. You can find these at the craft store. Certain behaviors will be rewarded with a fuzzy in the jar. Bucket filling is a similar concept. Some behaviors that get fuzzies are lining up quickly and quietly, smooth transitioning between subjects, and good behavior in Mass. Before Christmas we finally filled up our jar!!! Recently we had our celebration. Through generous class donations we were able to have ice cream, soda, tacos, and enchiladas! WOW! I brought the ice cream and enchiladas but Don Pepe, owned by the Gomez's, made us tons of tacos, and Mrs Paniagua brought in soda and cups! We also watched a fairy tale because it is our genre of the month. Here are some pictures: