Our friend the author JUDY SCHACHNER!!!

After reading all of the Skippyjon Jones books in our classroom, we decided to e-mail one of our favorite authors - Judy Shachner.  Here is her reply to us:

Hola Poochitos!!

Receiving your letter this morning  was like taking a gigantic vitamin. I can't even begin to tell you how good it made me feel...well maybe I can. It made me feel like dancing and singing and bouncing and hoping and  spinning and flying and running around in circles chasing my own tail!  Oh wait a minute...I don't even have a tail. Writing is a powerful thing!

Please send me your address so that I may send your entire fabulously fuzzy class s surprise.

Hugs and whiskers, from your friend without a tail,

Judy Schachner

P.S. I was forty years old before I dared to write a book.
        Don't wait that long before you try;)

And here is what came in the mail for us today!!  

She sent us a Skippyjon Jones costume, a class set of bookmarks, a handwritten note with a picture she sketched of Skippyjon, and two preview books!!!!!!! WOW!!!!  She sent us books that don't have the ending so we're on the edge of our seat waiting for it to come out in stores.  

Here one of our students models the costume and brand new book, Cirque de Ole!

Back to Football Friday

Today was the kickoff for "Fuel Up to Play 60" at our school.  Everyone was encouraged to wear their favorite team shirt.  After lunch we went to the track to stretch and take our two laps.  There were PTA volunteers handing out prizes and stickers.  Coach Bailey even had music playing to keep us pumped up!

Play 60 on PhotoPeach

More Interactive Skills Block Fun

Today in skills block we talked about synonyms and how we should use vivid vocabulary in our writing.  After exploring a thesaurus, students brainstormed lists of synonyms for words the teachers put on the board.   In the pictures you can see the students writing their words in categories.  We've also included the finished product - some of the best words that "popped" into our heads.  The kids will be encouraged to use this word wall in their writing.  

Cooking in School

We love our new school theme of cooking!  To learn about reading a recipe and measuring ingredients we made banana pudding.  It was educational and delicious!  

Cooking in School on PhotoPeach

Interactive Skills Block

In our class we start each day with an interactive skills block.  This week we played a relay game to review nouns, verbs, and adjectives.  Our teachers wrote a list of words on the board and we lined up in two teams.  We took turns adding a letter to the line in front of the word to identify it as a Noun, Verb, or Adjective. If we found one that was incorrect, we could correct it on our turn. When all of the words were taken we sat down.  It was more important to have the right answers than it was to be done first.  We had fun and showed off our knowledge of words at the same time!