Tidrick Class Blog

Happy Thanksgiving

It was another busy day for Room 309.  We shared our interviews about Thanksgiving customs. The students did a very nice job sharing their findings.  We had an interesting discussion.  We shared our "Tacky Turkeys".  Each student explained why and how they decorated their turkey.  Our first grade Reading Buddies were our judges.  Here is our winner of the "Tackiest Turkey"!

Together with our Reading Buddies we make edible turkeys.  We used oreos, gum drops, icing, m&ms, orange slices (candy), rice Krispie treats, and toothpicks.  They turned out very cute.  Some students wanted to take them home while others enjoyed gobbling up their turkeys!

We also had a presentation by a visiting author who was very interesting.  We bought three of his books for our classroom.  The students will be able to check them out.

Also, today at Addison we had some other visitors from the past and present.  On the 100 hall there was a Pilgrim,  on the 200 hall there was an Indian, and on the 300 hall their was a turkey!

Room 309  wishes everyone and their families the Happiest of Thanksgivings!

Monarchs Return

4/26/07 - Today we went to visit our first grade buddies.  It was a lot of fun because we got to look at our symbolic monarch butterflies we just received. They came all the way from

Mexico

and other parts of the

United States

.  Oh, the butterflies aren't real!  They are paper and made by other students in other parts of

North America

.  We had made some back in October to send to

Mexico

, and now children from all around have sent some back to us from their schools.  "Journey North" is the name of this program, and it is used to represent the migration of monarchs from the north to the south, and back again.  Our buddies have really enjoyed this project, and we got so many butterflies.  We got some from

Virginia

,

West Virginia

,

Connecticut

,

Ohio

,

Georgia

,

Pennsylvania

,

Texas

,

New Jersey

,

North Carolina

,

New York

, and

South Carolina

.  That's a mouthful!  We had fun doing this project, and I'm sure that other schools across the

US

did too. - Will

                         

Reading Buddies

3/30/07                                    

Reading Buddies

            Regular reading buddies?  Sure, but not these ones!  Our reading buddies are smart and special.  We helped our reading buddies make books.  Yes, we said Books.

            A couple weeks ago our reading buddies went to the Georgia Aquarium.  They went through the exhibits and learned about amazing animals.  After that, a couple weeks later, they invited us over to their class room for; yes here it is, helping them making their books.

            The books were on lots of different animals: Dolphins, Sea Horses, Seals, shrimp etc. When we went in there class room we helped them design

Their very own books.  They took 4 sentences out of the paragraph that they wrote and put them into a little book, finishing it of by drawing about the sentences.  We enjoyed hearing about their trip and the information they learned about their animals.

You can see how hard we were working on their books.

                                                                                                     

St. Patrick's Day On-line Project

March 13, 2007

Today our Reading Buddies and our class worked together in a project called The St. Patrick's Day Project 2007.  This is an on-line project that has 840 classrooms registered.  There will be 21, 000 students doing the same experiment as our classes.  The hypothesis is "There are more green clover/hats shapes in a 14 oz. box of Lucky Charms than any other color".  Each Reading Buddy group had a bag of Lucky Charms to sort and graph.  All the data was collected and our class will calculate the sums of all the different shapes to see if our hypothesis is correct. We will create an Excel spreadsheet. We will then submit our data to the website.  All the data has to be in by March 16th.   We will find out the results of all 840 classrooms next week.  We will link the results on the blog.  We have included pictures of our activity so join in the fun.

                                                                                                      

Career Centers

Today was a great day!  Our class and our book buddies went to the Media Center for Addison's " Primetime Career Centers".  All the centers had to do with different careers.  Everything was hands-on and we learned so much about each career.  We want to thank our counselors for doing such a fantastic job.  It was alot of work to organize the centers and plan all the different activities.  You are the BEST!!!   

Join us in Career Centers:

                                                                                                                                                                                         

                                                                              

                                                                            

                                                                          

Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day! We had a great and busy Valentine's in Room 309.  The students made very creative and beautiful boxes.

After the judging, we had a winner and two honorable mention.

We went to our Reading Buddies and did a math activity.  We had a lab sheet and had to find out which color of hearts had the most candy in the box.  The students came up with a hypothesis and then had to prove or disprove it.  They also made a graph of their findings.  The fifth graders had also checked out a book from the media center to read and leave with their book buddy.  The first graders had made their buddy a special cut out that they could hang.  It was a great day!

                                                                            

From Book Buddies to Science with Jordan

December 19, 2006

Today was a very busy day.  From making the final plans for the Soiree, to watching our first grade buddies presented their "Water Cycle Play", to doing a chemical change experiment with Jordan, it has been an exciting day of learning.  Enjoy the pictures from our day and have your child explain to you about our experiment and also about the gifts we made for our Reading Buddies.

                                                                                                        

                        

The Science Experiment:  Chemical Changes

                                                                                                                

Tomorrow we look forward to our Soiree.

Mrs. T

How can we help the birds in the winter?

      Today our class and our Book Buddies found a way to help birds in the winter.  We made a bird feeder out of a pine cone.  We began the day with the fifth graders making a special mixture to put on the pine cone.  The mixture contained Crisco, corn meal, oatmeal, raisins, dried apricots, and sunflower seeds.  The students really enjoyed measuring the amounts.  I hope all of you cook with your students.  It is a great way to make a math connection to real life.  In the end, we tripled the recipe.  It was a good thing we did, because we needed every bit of our special mixture!
     After making the mixture, we prepared for the arrival of our Reading Buddies.  It was the first time they had been to our room.   The fifth grader helped the first graders as they tied red yarn on each pine cone.  Next the students place the special mixture on the pinecone and last, they rolled it in birdseed.

   

Since it was so cold, we all got our coats and headed out to the garden to hang our pine cone bird feeders for our friends the birds.  Not only are we helping our bird friends but the garden got decorated for the December holidays.  

Mrs. T

Do turkeys come in different shapes?

We had a very busy and fun day of learning on Tuesday before the  Thanksgiving holiday. 

First, we went to our Book Buddies for a special Thanksgiving activity.  They had made each of us a beautiful card.  Then together we made editable turkeys.  They were fun to make plus great tasting!

                                       

Next it was on to the Media Center where we continue our study on Reference materials.  We labeled a newspaper as we learn about its different parts.

                           

At last it was time to vote for the "Tacky Turkey" award.  All the students had a turkey to take home and try and turn into the tackiest turkey they could imagine.  We had some great turkeys.  Some were very creative and some were even pretty.  However, we were looking for the tackiest turkey!  Two people tied for second.

Our winner of the "Tackiest Turkey"

I hope you all have a safe and relaxing holiday.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Mrs. T

Making Spiders with Our Reading Buddies

Halloween, October 31st, 2006

Today our class had time with our Reading Buddies in Ms. Coleman's class.  We read a fiction story about a spider to the first graders.  Next we read a non-fiction story about spiders to learn facts about them.  One thing we discovered is that spiders could have six or eight eyes.  The last thing we did together was make a spider with a Oreo, twislers, mini M & Ms, and chocolate icing.  It was fun to work with our Reading Buddy making our spiders.  We made connections with the song we sang  when we were younger, " The Itsy Bitsy Spider."  We even connected to books about Spiders such as Charlotte's Web.  Finally, we sadly ate our spiders which were very delicious!