New Goals, Mitten Activities and a New App

To start the new year off we talked about goals and resolutions.  I shared one of my resolutions, eating healthier, and then asked the students to think of one goal they would like to make for themselves.  Once goals were recorded, the students made a 2014 flip book and a little craft to go along with the lesson.

Next up, I began reading books about mittens.  We did a variety of mitten themed activities in math, science and writing as well as compared different versions of the story The Mitten (one written by Jan Brett and the other by Alvin Tresselt). Because Jan Brett is a favorite author in our class, I decided to also read her book, The Hat and do an author study.  During our study we learned that Ms. Brett lives in Massachusetts with her husband and Buffy, their pet hedgehog.  She is author/illustrator for her books and often travels to different countries to get ideas for her writing.

Finally, to end the week I taught the students the new app, Venn Diagram.  With this app the students independently compared/contrasted Jan Brett's books, The Mitten and The Hat.  Once their diagram was completed they uploaded it onto their blog.