Happy St. Patrick's Day!

We had a wild and crazy time this week trying to capture leprechauns. The children brought their traps to class on Wednesday, March 16. Each child shared his trap with the class and explained how it worked. Before we left at the end of the day, we set the traps in different places in our classroom. I confess that I was just blown away with how creative and marvelous the traps were. I hope the children and their parents enjoyed making these traps. I had a blast just listening to the children tell how their traps worked. They were so proud of their work. St. Patrick's Day we were greeted with a trail of shiny shamrocks from the outside doors to our classroom. There were tiny green footprints on the glass of our classroom door. Inside our room, all the traps had been sprung! Shiny green and gold coins were scattered around the room and on all the traps. Little green footprints were everywhere. The toilet had green water in it! Surely you heard the screams of glee as the children explored the room. We were loud!! Unfortunately we didn't catch any leprechauns so I will not be retiring to the beach anytime soon. During writer's workshop, the children wrote about their traps and our morning. In the afternoon, the children sorted and graphed Lucky Charms cereal. We participated in an online project to determine if there were more shamrock marshmallow shapes than other marshmallow shapes in each box. Our box of Lucky Charms did have more of the shamrock shapes. We finished the day by flying the kites we made when we were studying weather.

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In other work this week, the children made TLC leprechauns and wrote about what they would do if they found a leprechaun's pot of gold.

Leapin' Leprechauns Homework

Help your child be the first kid ever to catch a real live leprechaun at LME! Use the next two weeks to plan, design and build your leprechaun trap. If you need ideas to design and create your own leprechaun trap go to the following link and see what these engineering children came up with: How to Catch a Leprechaun.

Remember leprechaun traps are due on WEDNESDAY, MARCH 16!

Be sure to read the fine print on the note your child brought home about this assignment. "All gold obtained as a result of catching a leprechaun in room 402 MUST be shared 50/50 with Mrs. Miller so she can retire early and move to the beach!"

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January Happenings

We have spent most of this month learning about Arctic and Antarctic animals. We started with polar bears and made some really cute TLC polar bears. We followed this with penguins. We made a schema chart of what the children knew first. Then we read lots of penguin nonfiction and the children learned that some of their schema was not correct. We corrected our misconceptions and added our new schema to the chart too.


The children made TLC penguins and wrote two nonfiction facts to accompany the pictures. They made other penguins in art with Mrs. B and she helped them write facts on those penguins.


During centers, the children used black, white and orange construction paper to create penguins. These Playful Penguins look great in our room.



We have really been learning about the conventions of nonfiction and how to write nonfiction. During writer's workshop, each child made a nonfiction poster "All About" something they knew about.

We will be learning about animals in winter next week.

Happy Birthday MLK!

We did a mini-unit on Martin Luther King, Jr. this past week. Due to the missed week of school because of snow, we had to do this after the actual holiday celebrating Dr. King's birthday. We sang songs, read books, and made a TLC portrait of Martin Luther King, Jr. The children especially enjoyed the Martin Luther King, Jr sound effects story from Heidi Butkus's blog. Heidi has wonderful ideas that I frequently use in my classroom. Check her out at http://heidisongs.blogspot.com/

Gingerbread and More

Our class has had a busy month during December. Jingle, the elf, visited our class and everyday would watch us from a different place in the room. Every night, he would report to Santa and tell him if we were naughty or nice. A child was chosen each day to write in Jingle's journal to tell where he was in the room.

We did a unit on the gingerbread man and read many different versions of the story. We made a TLC Gingerbread Man book and we finished the unit by making gingerbread houses. We had lots of parent help and that made a big difference. Thanks to all our wonderful parents. Here are photos of all the fun in progress.

And the finished products ...

The children made candy cane ornaments using beads and a pipe cleaner. They had red, green and white beads and had to make a pattern on their candy canes. I also made snowman ornaments using the children's hand prints decorated with paint pens to look like snowmen.


The children did several art projects making elves, reindeer, and Santas. They wrote wish lists for Santa.






Our class participated in a Christmas card exchange with 24 other elementary classes from across the country. We put all our cards up on the bulletin board and connected them with yarn and push pins to the states they were from.


December was a great month. Now we are looking forward to the new year with studies on snow, Arctic and Antarctic animals.

Happy New Year!