Tiger Team: May 2012

Dear Family,

We had a short week in the classroom this week because of some fun adventures that took us to the great (rainy) outdoors.

We worked hard on beginning our independent research for our final expository, or nonfiction, piece. We brainstormed a list of animals that we wanted to write our expository piece on. We used a list. Then, we had conferences with our buddies to decide on our final animal topic. We started a bit of our research using lots of books and websites as well.

Brainstorming in our Writer's Notebooks

Hmmm....what should my topic be??

Two more reading groups were able to perform their plays for us. Here are the great actors.

The Three Billy Goats Gruff

We also had some authors share their published pieces. Here is an author sharing his procedural text with us.

On Wednesday, we packed up our lunches and headed for the school buses. We were excited to visit Crowe's Nest Farm to see some animals and explore the great outdoors.

When we arrived, we had a nice lunch on the picnic tables. We had some great sights while we dined...horses, longhorns, and donkeys. It was very exciting.

As we headed out to start our tour, the clouds finally gathered and it began to pour down rain. Being the awesome troopers we are, we trained to brave the drizzle and headed on a hay ride. We got to see a few animals and even a giant ostrich egg! Wow! The hay ride turned out to be one of our favorite attractions because as we progressed, the rain came down harder and it was almost like being on a water ride.

He came right up to the truck!

Look at the size of that ostrich egg!

See the buffalo? The rain was starting to come down pretty hard!

We visited the dairy and learned about how cows produce milk and how farmers collect this milk for us to consume.

We visited with Farmer Joyce and learned about the different types of animals that live at Crowe's Nest Farm and why this farm was established. Just when we thought we would be able to explore, the rain continued to come down hard. We were all wet and getting pretty chilly, so we boarded the buses and headed back for TvE. It was a pretty good thing too, because look at just how exhausted we were after our adventure!

Heading back to TvE

A special thank you to Mrs. Crowder, Mrs. Velez, and Mrs. Duke for going with us and helping us with plenty of umbrellas!

The next day was Field Day. The hoped the gray clouds wouldn't put another damper on our outdoor fun. We were excited to partake in all of the fun cartoon theme activities, like Popeye's Spinach Toss, The Little Mermaid water run, and the Pink Panther Volleyball Court. Here are some great photos of us just having lots of fun!