Hello, my name is Rosie. I have five dogs! I can tell you their names. They are Ollie, Fluffy, Casper, Lulu, and Curley. And I even named one of them - Lulu. I like to spend my time cooking, riding bikes, drawing, and playing school. I also love to read!

Hi! My name is Julia B. And I am eight years old. I have five people and a dog in my family. My favorite things rondo with my family are jump on my trampoline, swim, and go camping! Now, my favorite things to do are... I like gymnastics! I also love cheer! Then I LOVE school the best! I like school the best because we get to do things. Now, my favorite subject is art, because we get to make things out of clay! My favorite teachers so far are Mrs. Freeman, Mrs. Mather, and Miss Holly. Oh, I can't forget this one - Mrs. Losh! These are my favorite teachers because they are nice, they are kind, they are fun, they are silly, and because they are the BEST!!! Oh, they are the best in the world!

Now back to me. One more thing about me is my favorite colors are... blue, real, green, purple, and pink! I also like subs because they are fun. Oh, another thing about me is my favorite food! My favorite foods are ice cream, pizza, and McDonald's. Bye!! Bye!!

Rumplestiltskin! Chicken Little! Jack and the Beanstalk! The Bremen Town Musicians! What do these all have in common? They are all folktales! We are studying folktales in Reading Workshop now. We have learned that there are character types in folktales, like the hero, the villian, and the sidekick. Some of them have tricksters, like Foxy Loxy in the folktale Chicken Little. We also got to do readers' theater with folktales. Readers theater is when you act out the story and everyone gets to be a character. We loved it, because they were funny and fun!

What's that sound? Let's go look for it! Just follow your ears! We're learning all about sound in science. We learned that sound is made by vibrations. Not only that, but you can hear them because the vibrations are going through the air. We have explored with different sized nails, tuning forks, and Boomwhackers, and a glockenspiel (xylophone). We discovered that the bigger the object is, the lower the pitch is. The smaller the object is, the higher the pitch is.  

We have been learning about Troy history in social studies. We've learned that the period from 1900 - 1950 was a time when lots of things were changing! Troy went from a small pioneer town to a growing farming community. Cars, railroads, and electricity came to Troy during this time, and we are imagining all the ways those inventions must have changed people's lives! In fact, today we learned about several inventions from this time, like the assembly line, the airplane, and the pop-up toaster!

What else was invented during the early 20th Century? Your job is to find out about one item that was invented between 1900 and 1950. Use the internet to find a picture of it. Then, leave a comment describing the item, when it was invented, and how you think it changed people's lives. Don't forget to leave a link to the website you found it on! That way we can all learn more about it. Have Mom or Dad help you!

Roses are red
Violets are blue
We love poetry
and so will
you!

Today, we started Poetry Workshop. We got our own little poetry journals to write down the poems we make. We got inspired by a book of poems written by second graders - but not us. Then, we shared our topics and ideas and got inspired by each other! In our poetry journals, we wrote our first poems, and then we got to share them with the class. So...

Roses are red
Violets are blue
We love poetry
Now, do you?

Ahhh! Animals on the loose! A few weeks ago, someone from Science Alive came to our class and brought animals in. Science Alive is a program that comes into schools and teaches kids about animals. Here are the animals that we saw: a chinchilla, a toad, an armadillo, a skunk, and a snake. The chinchilla's tail wasn't very soft, but its body was. If you touched the toad's stomach, it would get hurt because of the oil on your hands, but not on the top. It was very bumpy! The armadillo kept running around and bumping into the scientist, but it was okay, because it had a hard shell to protect itself. The skunk was a cuddly baby. But don't worry, she had her squirt gun removed! The sssslithery sssssnake was the bessst part! It was smooth, dry, and scaly. We got to carry it on our shoulders. It was enormously heavy! It did not kill anyone, though! And that's what it was like when Science Alive came!

Ding, ding, ding! School's in session, and the year is 1880. Wait, it's 2014! Well...not on Monday. That's because on Monday we went on a field trip to the Troy Historic Village. We went to school at Poppleton, a real one-room schoolhouse from the 1800s. We went there to learn about the past and what it felt like for children in school back then. We learned about the 3 R's, we wrote with chalk on slates, and we played with old-fashioned games at recess. We even had to change our names to names of kids who really went to Poppleton! But if you really lived in the 1800's, you would NEVER want to get in trouble. That's because the punishments were HORRIBLE! If you were tardy, you would have to do your work standing up. If you chewed gum, you had to spit it out, put it on the chalk board and stick your nose in it. Worst of all was the dunce cap! When you didn't do your homework, you had to put it on and sit in the corner, and your teacher would call you a dunce (that means a stupid person)! They could even hit you with a stick! And that's what it was like in the 1800's.

Oh no! The teacher's coming with a stick because we were talking in school! Run to the time machine!