Origami Stars

Each month, parents volunteer to come to class and teach a seasonal art project to the students. Today, we made a beautiful origami star! Origami is the ancient Japanese art of paper-folding. In Japanese, oru means fold and kami means paper. 

The two origami stars who put together this craft were Karissa's mom and Abby's mom.  

Each student needed two identical sheets of origami paper. 

One side had a design and one side was white. 

There were many steps. Since we were doing origami, many steps involved folding. Students were encouraged to carefully fold and heavily crease the origami paper after each step. 

After folding one sheet four times, it was time to measure and mark four areas to be cut. The moms provided a nonstandard measuring tool to mark the length of each cut. 

Next, it was time to make the four cuts. It reminded us of the time we made the compass rose! Each cut was at a cardinal direction: north, south, east, and west.  

The next step was to do some additional folds where the cuts were made.  

Finally, we glued the folds in a way that created a 3-dimensional point.   

We then repeated all the steps with the second piece of origami paper. The two 4-pointed stars were glued together to form this 8-pointed star.

When we were done making the stars, we went outside and created a panoramic picture. Do you notice anything unusual about this panoramic?  (Hint: Look at the person on the end.) 

 Click to Enlarge this panoramic picture. 

What did you like about this parent-lead craft project?

What other origami project would you like to create? 

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Acing Our 1:1 Acer Program

We just started a 1:1 Acer program in our classroom! 

What a terrific tool!

We charge the laptops nightly. Soon we will be taking them home!

Mrs. Yollis tied the charger cords into groups of four or six, based on the power strip. The Acers can be charged in an organized way. Otherwise, the cords end up like a bowl of spaghetti!

Some students are leaders and are on the Tech Team. 

They are in "charge" of plugging in the Acers and passing them out each morning before school. 

When students are not using their Acers, they are stacked in the middle of the table. 

Our team of teachers has a Google Shared folder. We drop lessons and ideas into this shared folder. The lessons are then easily added to our Google Classroom. 

We have used Google Docs to learn about grammar skills while also learning about formatting. We can highlight and change the fonts. We even learned how to change the text to bold or italics! 

Here is an example of a grammar lesson using tables:

Here is an example a Google Spreadsheet. We will be using it to gather character trait information while reading Stone Fox.  

A fun activity was done collaboratively! We signed into ONE Google Doc in pairs and wrote a Terse Verse for Twitter. It was fun to summarize a variety of folk tales using a word count of 140 or less. We learned how to highlight, check the word count, and see how multiple users can be on one document.  

Here is a photo of our collaborative document!

Here is a link to our Twitter Time Terse Verses!  

We use our Acers to log into Newsela, Go Math, and Google Classroom. 

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One of our favorite activities on the Acers is blogging. We can comment to each other on our class blog or our 365 Project. For the last two weeks we have been blogging with our four-year-old Journeys buddies!

We have taught them about the keyboard, the screen, the Internet, the curser, the trackpad, and navigating using a mouse. 

This week, our buddies tried to get a conversation going on the blog. Their comment had a greeting, a statement or two, and ended with a question. So much fun!

First the students wrote their comments out on paper. Once the thoughts were in order, the bloggers took turns typing and publishing the comments. 

When we were done blogging, we enjoyed playing Kodable on the Acers with our little buddies. 

One way we share our learning is through posting shortcut or tips on index cards. We grouped the tips by category. 

Here are some tips for highlighting, copying, bolding, and cutting. 

Here are some general tips! 

What is your favorite Acer activity?

What are some activities you would like to do? 

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Thanksgiving is Nearly Here!

If our tree looks like this, it must be nearly Thanksgiving! 

Photo by Mrs. Yollis 

That means it is time to bake pumpkin bread! 

Thank you, volunteers!

Baking Pumpkin Bread on PhotoPeach

Besides baking bread,  we were able to help out our Journeys buddies. They put on a fabulous Thanksgiving show!

We are thankful to have such wonderful friends! 

The speeches, songs, and poems were so well done! Great job, Ms. Cuevas and buddies!

After a week of conferences, announcements, and fun activities, everyone was exhausted, including Beverly! 

Photo by Mrs. Yollis 

Enjoy your Thanksgiving break! 

What are you doing for Thanksgiving?

Do you have a special meal planned?

What are you grateful for? 

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Terse Verse :: Twitter Time!

We recently completed a unit on folktales.  

What are folk tales? 

folk tale

noun

plural noun: folktales

1. a story originating in popular culture, typically passed on by word of mouth.

One type of folk tale is the fairy tale. 

Fairy tales have some basic elements:

• Often start with "Once upon a time..."
• Involve magic and enchantment
• Royalty 
• Wicked characters 
• Good characters
• Reward goodness
• Often end with "And they lived happily ever after."

After students read and shared several fairy tales, they worked together to summarize the fairy tale for Twitter. Because Twitter only allows 140 characters, the summary needed to be brief. 

Behold! A Twitter Terse Verse

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More Terse Verses to come! 

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HOW did we write our Terse Verses?

We used a collaborative Google Doc!

First, students signed in to the shared Terse Verse Google Doc with their partner. It was fun to watch everyone arrive on the Google Doc!  It looked like magic as a plethora of cursors moved independently. Bit by bit the terse fairy tale summaries were written.   

Students read and followed the directions at the top of the Terse Verse doc. Everyone learned how to highlight words or phrases, and how to find out the word count of the summary.  

Which fairy tale was your favorite?

What do you notice about the photos?

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Stellar Spine

In class, we have been learning about bones and muscles. The human body can do some amazing things.

The spine is very important. It is made of bones called vertebrae (VER-teh-bray). The bones are like a chain. Together they can flex and move in many directions.

To demonstrate just how flexible and movable the human body is, we present Stella. "I have been taking gymnastics for four years," said Stella. "At first, I learned a cartwheel. After many lessons, I can now do a flip, a backbend, roundoff back handspring, and the splits. I hope you enjoy my floor routine."

What are some ways you use your spine?

What are your hobbies?

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Thank You, National Geographic!

Last month, we were asked to help National Geographic film a two minute promotional video for their fabulous Giant Traveling Map program.  It was an exciting experience, and we were honored to be asked!

Erica and Kristen helped keep everything moving on schedule. 

The crew brought a lot of sound and video equipment. 

They even set up our classroom with a special camera and lighting. Here is where Erica, the interviewer,  conducted interviews about the giant maps. The crew is waiting for the next interviewee.  An interviewer is a person who interviews. An interviewee is the person being interviewed. 

Photo by Mrs. Yollis 

It was fun to have the Giant Traveling Map of Africa to explore! There are lots of games and activities included with the rental. 

 Here we are exploring with our reading buddies. Some students are in the northern hemisphere. Others are in the southern hemisphere. Ms. Cuevas is on the equator! 

Our music teacher, Mrs. Adler, taught some terrific African music lessons on the map while they filmed.  

Photo by Dan S.

Photo by Kristen

 Sitting in the Sahara Desert in northern Africa. That's the largest desert in the world! 

Photo by Dan S. 

Our principal and superintendent joined the learning. Each contributed their thoughts about geography and the giant map during an interview session. 

On the last day, Erica shared some stories and photos about her trip to Africa. She met the Masai people while filming in Africa. 

This week, we got a lovely thank you gift from National Geographic! We can't wait to read all the books you sent and continue our learning adventure!

The video will be available soon! 

What was your favorite part about the experience?

What have you learned so far from reading the gift books and looking at the cards?

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