100th day fun in class!

What a great week in class!  We wrapped up our celebration this week with a special snack made of ten sets of ten different items. 

Happy 100th Day!

This week we are have been celebrating the 100th day of school with today as our official 100th day! We have  read several stories about the number 100 and about the 100th day of school. Some of the activities we completed in class were: Draw selves as 100 year olds, this works on fine motor skills and language skills. We wrote about what we would buy if we had $100. This works on fine motor skills and writing skills. We tried to guess what 100 seconds would be like and then sat down when we thought it had been 100 seconds. This focused on math and time. The children have completed a 100 chart to work on number recognition skills. We are even going on a number search around the classroom. I have hidden the numbers 1-100 all over the room and have asked the children to go on a scavenger hunt to try to find them. We will wrap up our week with a 100th day snack where we make a snack using 10 different food items in sets of 10 to make 100. Our main focus this week is that 100 is 10 sets of 10. Have your child try to count to 100 for you by 5’s and 10’s. We have had fun trying that in the classroom. For a challenge, we tried to count by 2’s as well!  Finally during writing time this week, we have been focusing on writing opinion and persuasive stories.  The children were challenged with trying to write a story to persuade me to have a 100th day party.  This was a fun activity and the arguments for a party were comical!

100 Book Club

Congratulations!

100 Book Club

Congratulations!

Outside at Last!

The temperature wasn't quite warm enough for our entire recess time to be outside so to help break up our indoor recess "blues" we bundled up and took a quick walk around the school. So many of the kids were laughing and had a good time!

Happy New Year!

Happy New Year and welcome back!  It has been a bit of a crazy week, but we have all survived!  With the weather as cold as it has been, we have had indoor recess.  The class has been so disappointed that we haven't been able to go outside and the snow.  :)

We had a great first semester!  All of the children have formed many friendships not only within our classroom but also between classrooms.  The children participate daily in free play activities, which encourage the development of friendships and social skills.

 One of the biggest gains this year for the children is the number of letters and beginning sounds they have learned.  It is exciting, as everyday I see the progress of the children in both their individual writing and group writing.  We write, as a class, on a daily basis.  This allows the children to practice letter formation, spacing, and sentence structure.  The children also practice their writing individually on a daily basis.  As a group, we work on a writing sample together. Then, the children get to practice the skills we discussed as a whole group independently. Finally, I have a chance to conference with each child individually to focus on the needs of each child.

We will continue to write stories daily, as this helps the children to develop writing skills, reading readiness skills, and letter sound recognition.  During our writing block, I have asked the children to write a story with at least 5 sentences now.  We have discussed how a story needs a beginning, a middle (the details), and an ending.  We will start to "publish" these stories as the semester goes along. You can help your child with his/her writing by talking with him/her each day about what he/she will write during writing workshop time.

            In Math, the children have become fantastic at copying and creating patterns.  We have also worked on shapes, number writing, counting, and graphing during the first semester.  During the second semester, the math classes will be working on measuring some more, time, money, and simple story problems during the rest of the year.  You can help your child with his/her number recognition skills and number writing skills by practicing them at home.

I have sent home our first report card.  Please know that it will be in an email and the sender will be Carmel Clay Schools.  If you do not see it in your inbox, please check your junk mail.  Sometimes it does get sent there.  If you do not receive it by Sunday, please email me and I will resend it to you.

Have a great "warm" weekend!

100 Book Club

Congratulations!