Wonderful Wednesday!

Today was Ian's birthday AND it was library day. Perhaps you do not know this magical fact: if your birthday falls on library day, Ms. Gooch sings you a personal rendition of "Happy Birthday" in her best operatic voice.
We cannot be sure, but we think some of the dogs in the neighborhood were joining in on the screeching...I mean singing.
Thank you, Ms. Gooch, for making library time so much fun! We never leave you without a big smile on our faces!
Today, Ms. Gooch had to teach the library lesson in our classroom. (The library was being used for a conference.) She talked to us about the Census. We now know that the Census is taken every 10 years. (Ask your child to tell you WHY a Census is taken.)
We took a Census of our own room using "tallies". The counter is called a "tallyman".
We separated the boys' count from the girls' count.
We had to enter our names and ages.
Mrs. Gooch will compile the information for the entire school.
Elliot brought back some cool postcards from his Spring Break trip to New Mexico.
Bella wrote a song. Now that she has the lyrics, she will begin composing the music.
Joseph brought a spikey ball that bounces very high. He said that many of the points have to hit at the same time for the ball to bounce.
Ian had a fascinating presentation of shark teeth. He found one, was given a special one by his grandfather, and purchased many of them at a store.
Thomas had a piece of an amethyst.
Liam shared a book about the Animal Kingdom. He had many interesting facts about unusual animal behavior. (When he showed the lemur, the class broke into a spontaneous rendition of "I Like to Move It, Move It" from the movie "Madagascar".)

We are working on telling time with digital clocks and clocks with hands. We need to master "o'clock" and "half past or :30". We know that you use the symbol " :" to separate the hour and the minute. We know which direction is clockwise.

We are continuing to write "How To" pieces. This teaches us to think out what we will write, and make sure that it is in order.

Our spelling words are contractions this week. Contractions are two words put together like "I" and "will" becomes I'll. The missing letters are replaced by an apostrophe. An apostrophe floats in the word like a balloon. It should never look like a comma.