Despite the storm we were able to stay on track with learning about the United States. We discussed a few of the symbols of the United States including the bald eagle and American Flag. Students took part in a read aloud about the steps taken for the women’s right to vote. The students explored the symbols of the democratic and republican parties. We learned that voting is done in private.

We briefly went over how the government has three branches of government: executive, legislative, and judicial. The students discussed how the three branches of government work together to have our country work as efficiently as possible.

The American Flag is an important symbol of our country and we learned a little more about it this week. We discussed how the flag has 13 stripes to represent the 13 original colonies and 50 stars to symbolize the 50 states in the United States of America. The students worked on a project that had them creating their own American Flags. Some students took inspiration from the American Flag and discovered what the flags of other countries look like.

In Writer’s Workshop we are working on expanding the sounds we hear in the words we are writing. In order to do this, we are practicing saying the word we are sounding out slowly so we can hear the beginning, middle, and end of each word. We are including more of the sounds in the word by doing this in our writing.

On Tuesday the school is going to have an election of our own. The students are very excited to cast their votes. We are then moving on to a lesson on hibernation and an author study of Eric Carle.