Valentine Exchange!

Here is a little video of our Valentine exchange. The kids absolutely loved every minute of it!

valentines day movie from Lizzie Ortega on Vimeo.

Our Valentine's Day!

Earlier last week we prepared for our Valentine's exchange by making these darling heart bags. The kids had a ton of fun being creative and making it themselves!

We had SO much fun during our pizza party lunch on Valentine's Day! Thank you to the moms and dads that sent in extra goodies for the kids to enjoy during lunch! 

For my Valentine to the kids I gave them each a tiny tube of bubbles. To end our day we went outside and played with them before recess! The kids were so happy!

Later this week I have a short video of the kids exchanging Valentines. See you soon!

A Dance Party

I have the kids take brain breaks at various time during our days. Usually in between subjects like transitioning from writing to math. I dare say it gets too quiet and too calm and they need to wake up a little to focus on the next lesson. So we typically do an organized brain break such as the hokey pokey, but every now and then they work so hard that I tell them they have earned a "dance party". A dance party for us is just a two minute dance session in our room. They are free to have fun and let loose and "get their wiggles out" as I usually tell them. Dance parties have been extremely necessary with the past few weeks of very cold weather. Here is a little video I recorded of our most recent "dance party". They have got some moves! I love it...enjoy!

American Symbols!

Last week learned all about four American Symbols. The kids LOVED this unit, they do every year! We learned all about the Liberty Bell, American flag, Statue of Liberty, and Bald Eagle. 

We learned that the American flag has fifty white stars, seven red stripes, and six white stripes. 

We learned that the Statue of Liberty is located in New York. She was originally made of copper and was a gift from France. 

We did a fun little test to see if all of our class lined up would be as long as her foot (25 feet long). The answer was no!

That's a big foot!

We also did a little experiment to understand why Lady Liberty looks green instead of copper brown. We soaked copper pennies in vinegar and salt. They turned green just like her! The vinegar and salt acted like the salt water that surrounds her in New York harbor. 

Finally we learned that the Liberty Bell can be seen in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and it cracked three times! 

We made our own little Liberty Bells using paper cups, foil, toilet paper rolls, and brown and black markers. 

I hot glued their toilet paper rolls on their cups for them. 

Kennedy was very clever and realized she could make her materials into the Statue of Liberty's torch before making it a Liberty Bell. Everyone loved her Statue of Liberty pose! 

Money and Addition/Subtraction Strategies

Hello! I'm very behind on sharing our recent adventures from math workshop. We have learned all about the penny, nickel, dime, and quarter. The kids LOVE to work with our fake school money. We learned all of the values of the coins and how to count each coin in sets. 

In January we learned the different strategies that could be used for adding and subtracting. We are really going to start pushing forward with our math facts from here on!