Iditarod Project

Here are some images from our Iditarod Unit. I'll be posting some of the writing we've done about the Iditarod soon!

Our bulletin board in the hallway with Iditarod map and photos.

Bar Graphs with Musher Stats.

Our Checkpoint descriptions and Mushers.
We move them everyday as they move along the trail!
They're almost to Nome now!

The Iditarod Map in our classroom was created by students.
We use it to track the mushers' progress.


This was taken near the beginning of the race



What the pushpins mean.

One lucky student will get to take this guy home at the end of the race.
Whoever's musher makes it Nome first gets him! He's made quite the trip around the room as the standings have changed!

Check out this photo blog... BEAUTIFUL images of the race, including some of the mushers we are rooting for!

Here's our Thursday

I brought my camera to school on Thursday (when we went on the field trip) and took pictures all day. None of them include clear faces of children (just backs of heads and blurry faces in the background) , but they give you a pretty good idea of our day. From our regular morning routine to the fun we had on the field trip! :) Enjoy!

This is what I do before you all arrive at school.

Then we do our morning routine. I hand out stickers, we review the morning work, do some spelling, and if we have time play our favorite game on Spelling City.

After that you go to library.

I go back to the classroom to do things.

One of those things is to check the status of our mushers.

Then you come back for journal writing.

Today we wrote about Alaska.

Then we move the pins in the map to show our musher's location.
Cruz gets the dog on his desk today becuase his musher is in the lead!

Time to leave for the field trip!

You all seem to enjoy the 45 minute drive,
playing with the Brain Quest cards, eye spy bag, and tornado I brought.

The White Mountain Symphony was great! They played music from
Harry Potter, The Sorcerer's Apprentice, Mary Poppins, and more.
See that trumpet play in the back row on the far right? That's my friend Stephen!

Then we head back home.

We eat lunch on the bus, and I take some aspirin becuase you guys are awfully loud!
Though I did enjoy the Taylor Swift song you serenaded us with.

We get back in time for the assembly,
where we hear Bruce Isham, author and storyteller,
tell us all about life in the old west.

Since you were good all day and had been sitting for it, we decide you deserve some recess. :)

Coming soon, pictures of our Iditarod unit. The winner is expected in Nome on Tuesday!

Iditarod Project

The Iditarod starts today!

Check out some cool articles
HERE @ the Official Iditarod Blog: EYE ON THE TRAIL

Scholastic also has a very kid friendly Iditarod website
Check it out HERE!

Starting Monday we will be moving our mushers along the trail and tracking them on our Musher Maps in class! We'll also be making some Iditarod graphs with statistics, reading Akiak, and writing our Musher bios! Lots of fun to come! :)

I've added links to some of the games we play in class to the side of the blog in the links list.
New links include...Spelling City(use Mrs. Smithson's page), Playing with Perimeter & Area, & Shape Surveyor (more perimeter & area).

Have a great weekend! :)

~Miss Jaster

Fractions Games

Here are the Fraction Games we've been playing this week in class.
Practice at home! :)

Comparing Fractions to Decimals Tank Game

Matching Fraction & Decimal Pairs Game

Dolphin Fraction Race & Fraction Ordering

Iditarod Project

Soon we'll be doing a unit on the Iditarod dog sled race. We read a little about the race last week, and this week we'll draw mushers to write biographies on in computer lab. Then during the race we will be tracking the mushers and posting the information on a big class map. Here are some links in case you want to learn more about the Iditarod before we talk about it in class. We'll be using the official page to start our musher bios in class.

The Ultimate Iditarod
Official Iditarod Page

Here's a video I found about the 2008 race.

Thank You!

Thanks to all the parents who came to the info meeting tonight!
It was great seeing you! I hope you got a lot of good information out of it!
If you have any questions just email me! :)

Reminders:
Science Fair projects are due FRIDAY.
There will be no Valentine's Party, but you can still send cards to school on Friday.
Monday is President's Day, so no school!


See some of you next week at Parent Teacher Conferences.

REMINDERS!

There is a parent meeting on Wednesday, February 10th.
PLEASE send your parents!!!! This is very important! It's about AIMS and more! :)

Science fair projects are due on Friday! If you did one for extra credit make sure you bring it by Friday!