Today we had a fun, but busy, day in Room 240!

After independent reading and Morning Meeting, we had Reader's Workshop. Today we worked on the routines for workshop, now that the kids have their reading folders set up with their bookbags, reading logs, and reader response journals. They worked on all of the aspects of their folders today, and did a really nice job.

During Reader's Workshop, we had 3 volunteers in - Ava D.'s mom (Julie), Eleanor's mom (Mary), and Jack S.'s mom (Kari). Two (Julie and Mary) helped us plant seeds for our science unit - we will be watching the seeds grow over the next weeks. We planted peas, beans, sunflowers, and pumpkins. Kari was nice enough to read with kids as they were doing their reading in workshop.

After that, we had a short break, and then had Writer's Workshop. We are working on "fixing and fancying" up our writing. Each kids has chosen on piece that they will be working on for the next week or so, in anticipation of our first Writer's Celebration, which will be in two weeks, after the MEA break (stay tuned for more details).

Then it was off to lunch and recess, then back up to our room for Read Aloud - we are currently reading Jigsaw Jones and the Case of the Missing Hamster, which is another mystery series that kids really seem to enjoy. After that, we headed up to the music room for class with Mr. Hofmann.

When we got back up into our room, we played a comparing numbers game with cards - a lot like the one that went home for homework last night, but with the change that the kids could arrange the numbers in either order to make the largest number that they could.

After that, we had Science Lab - a couple of the kids were thinking about the planting that we did in the morning, and wanted to see if the worm castings from the worm bin would help the seeds grow faster and bigger, so we set up an experiment with bean seeds in which one container has just plain soil, and the other has soil plus worm castings. We'll keep you posted on the results.

After that, it was time from Friday Fun, and the kids all voted to go and play outside on the playground. It was a nice way to end our day and our week!

Enjoy the weekend!!