Oh, Mo!

      Willems that is.  During January we are studying Mo Willems and using him as a jumping point for our writing. The kids LOOOOOOOVVVVEEEDDDD the pigeon and were already drawing him everywhere  (backs of homework, word work time, hands, etc.) so I took that and ran with it by adding in some words.
      My classroom camera isn't saving the time/date stamp so sorry if the pictures are a little out of order.

After we read lots of pigeon books the kids came up
with the characteristics to describe him.

A close up...I guess I could have picked some of
his better attributes to take a picture of!

      I am loving our magnet unit. The kids are gaining such wonderful vocabulary and are really stretching their science minds. Hopefully they are using some of this great language at home: push, pull, magnetic, repel, and attract.

     The below pictures are one of the final experiments in which the kids had to get a car UP a ramp using just magnets, paper clips, and tape. 

These smarties hooked the paperclips over the cars "hitch"
and used the magnet to pull it up.

Recording his first attempt. We did 3 rounds
because real scientists attempt things more than once.

Taping paper clips to their car.

Hooking her truck up so she can pull it up the ramp

   

       We also investigated if magnets would work through water. I filled plastic soda and water bottles with water and magnetic items. The kids predicted what would attract through the bottle and what would not, then they got to play! They were making so many discoveries that I didn't get very many pictures, but here are a few.

They used different sizes of magnets to see what would work best.
If you look really carefully at the top you can see that they got the paperclip
to rise up out of the water. 

These girls are working on the pipe cleaners. All
the kids were amazed that they were attracted to the magnet.

These ones used the super magnet and got a huge clump
of items up the bottle.

      Miss Jacobson will be full time next week! She is so amazing, wonderfully creative and the kids are loving working with her. I will be popping in and out of the classroom so I can pull some small groups for remedial interventions while I have 3 weeks of "extra" time. That means that I won't be able to get as many pictures, but know that even if my posts are shorter or longer between I am so very impressed with the work that Miss Jacobson has been doing with these kids.


Edit:
I almost forgot to put up these ADORABLE snowmen that the kids made for our snack!