Snow Day?

It snowed for the first time this year and all the students were more than excited to bundle up and run outside to play. Ms. Miller was gone for the second half of the day, so I jumped right in with a read aloud and math lesson. I taught the beginning stages of multiplication. We discussed equal grouping using relevant life examples, such as markers in a box, buns in a hot dog package, etc. I asked the students to use their math manipulatives to show a representation of the equal groupings from various problems. They had no trouble and could easily figure out the total number of items in their head. The students followed up with their Everyday Math journals. Some continued to use manipulatives, but most found it fairly simple.

The weather is getting worse tonight and the kids all expressed excitment at the thought of no school tomorrow. Some students said it doesn't matter, they really enjoy school. That was nice to hear. Doesn't make it feel like you are going to work for nothing. 

I am in the middle of planning a science/social studies lesson for Friday morning. The students will be given a map of North America pasted onto a piece of cardboard and eventually they will build landforms on it. On Thursday, I am going to have the students make their own salt dough using flour, salt, water and food coloring. I made them a How To to relate to relate to their Writers Workshop unit and will have them use it to complete their salt dough. On Friday we will use the salt dough to build various landforms on the map to represent mountains, plains, hills, etc. We will then be able to discuss landforms and where they are on the North American continent. Different colors of dough will represent different landforms and we from there we will be able to build a map key.

The students are very excited for science and so am I! Hoping for snow school tomorrow! The students told me to wear my pajamas inside out and backward if I want to be out of school. We'll see.