Wednesday, October 29, 2014
Harlem Ambassadors
Yesterday we had the opportunity to watch a little bit of the Harlem Ambassadors. It was a fun time to learn about being drug free, bullying, and earning a college degree.
One of our classmates even had a chance to earn a free ticket by answering some questions from their presentation.
Friday, October 24, 2014
Monster of a Week!
It has been a "Monsterous" week! We have had so much fun talking about monsters this week. There have been so many laughs when we have talked about what kind of monster everyone would create. Next week we will continue with our monster theme and have fun creating a monster snack. We will be tying this into our writing time by each child learning how to write down the recipe to bring home.
This week during writing, we have focused on the learning target of "making our stories more interesting." What this means is adding more detail to the picture or the writing of the story. So many of the children are great at getting one thought (sentence) onto their page. Now, we are working on having each child add two or more sentences that go along with their picture. Another big struggle during writing time is using capital letters correctly in a sentence. We have learned all of the upper and lower case letters of the alphabet at this point in the school year, so I would encourage you to point out those capital/lower case mistakes when working on writing at home with your child. It is still fine to have a few (I never want to overwhelm a child with errors), just name a few and the more practice we have, the better this skill will become! :)
During math workshop this week, we took some time to focus the teen numbers again. We are slowly making progress with this skill. Keep practicing at home with writing and recognizing the teen numbers. The important thing to remember is to work on the numbers out of order to help with really learning the numbers instead of memorizing the numbers. On Thursday and Friday, we did a fun pumpkin activity where we really observed a pumpkin and even opened one up to look inside. We even investigated whether or not the pumpkin would sink or float. I think this was a favorite for everyone!
Next week we will be celebrating Red Ribbon Week at CE. This is a week where we celebrate being Drug Free. Here are the activities that are planned for next week:
Friday,
October 31st: Wear Red to show support for Red Ribbon Week!!!
Have a great weekend!
This week during writing, we have focused on the learning target of "making our stories more interesting." What this means is adding more detail to the picture or the writing of the story. So many of the children are great at getting one thought (sentence) onto their page. Now, we are working on having each child add two or more sentences that go along with their picture. Another big struggle during writing time is using capital letters correctly in a sentence. We have learned all of the upper and lower case letters of the alphabet at this point in the school year, so I would encourage you to point out those capital/lower case mistakes when working on writing at home with your child. It is still fine to have a few (I never want to overwhelm a child with errors), just name a few and the more practice we have, the better this skill will become! :)
During math workshop this week, we took some time to focus the teen numbers again. We are slowly making progress with this skill. Keep practicing at home with writing and recognizing the teen numbers. The important thing to remember is to work on the numbers out of order to help with really learning the numbers instead of memorizing the numbers. On Thursday and Friday, we did a fun pumpkin activity where we really observed a pumpkin and even opened one up to look inside. We even investigated whether or not the pumpkin would sink or float. I think this was a favorite for everyone!
Next week we will be celebrating Red Ribbon Week at CE. This is a week where we celebrate being Drug Free. Here are the activities that are planned for next week:
Wednesday,
October 29th: Our theme for this year is “My future is
bright. No drugs in sight.” Wear neon/fluorescent colors on
Wednesday!
Thursday,
October 30th: “I am a jean-ius! I’m drug free.” Wear
jeans on Thursday!
Have a great weekend!
Thursday, October 16, 2014
Symmetry All Around
This week for math we have focused on symmetry. We talked about what it means and how to make something symmetrical. First we used paint to make a symmetrical picture and then we used pattern blocks to make a symmetrical butterfly. See if you can find some symmetrical objects around you!
Rain, Rain, Go Away
With so much rain lately, we have had a lot of indoor time. To help break up our day, one of the activities we do is yoga. This has been a lot of fun!
Math Dots
During math workshop we have been working on representing numbers and learning about the teen numbers. The group has had a tough time learning about teen numbers. This is a great skill to practice at home. You can work with recognizing the numbers as well as showing how much a number is worth. For example, have your child count out 13 objects, draw 15 shapes, etc. Below are some great examples of our number grids that we made.
Bats and Spiders Oh My!
Wow! What a great past two weeks it has been in here! We have been busy learning about bats and spiders. The kids have been working hard at writing stories and including facts about bats or spiders in their stories. We have read several books on this topic as well.
We are moving right along with our letter recognition skills and sound recognition skills. Right now we are focusing in on recognizing the beginning and ending sounds in words. For example, if I would say the word ham, I ask the children to tell me the sound they hear at the beginning of the word or the end of the word. As the children become faster with this skill, I will use more difficult words and even go into listening for middle sounds. I am really trying to encourage the children to use this knowledge in their writing. If you have ever been asked the question "how do you spell this????" My stock answer is "what do you think" to help encourage the children to become more independent with this skill. After the child gives it a try on their own, I will then help out as needed. We have talked about stretching out words during writing workshop this week and listening for the different sounds in words that we may want to spell.
We have also worked on using labels in our pictures for writing workshop. Labeling will help us include details when it is time to write some sentences about a story. I have started to encourage the children to try and write at least two sentences about their story now instead of just one. Here are some hard workers trying to include details in their stories!
I hope everyone enjoys their Fall Break!
I hope everyone enjoys their Fall Break!
Tuesday, October 7, 2014
Wednesday, October 1, 2014
New Addition
Check out the new addition to our blog! I have added a book shelf for you to see what books we are reading in the classroom. I will periodically update the different titles as we read different stories. Hope you enjoy!
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)