Wednesday, January 20, 2016
Friday Fun Facts...
What a great couple of weeks it has been. All of the kids are working hard in the classroom! We have spent some time "bumping" up skills in class. Everyone is ready for it so we are moving forward! We have been so busy lately, that I haven't updated our classroom blog as much. So sorry!
I am so excited to share about our writing block in class. We have put all of the skills and topics that we have learned about during the first semester to use. We have started to write "books" with multiple pages. I have challenged each child to try to write a detailed story with a clear beginning, middle, and end. We have had so many different topics to share! Lots of new ideas have been formed from our sharing time. We have had stories about moms, batman, snow, and food to name a few. We are moving into our new writing unit about writing informational stories. These are stories that we can use to teach others about the facts that we know. We will be using the idea of multiple pages in books to help us write step by step ideas on "how-to" do different tasks in the next few weeks of school.
Your child is bringing home some OG papers today and you may have noticed that we have started working on a new skill. We have added sentence dictation to our daily routine. I dictate a sentence to the children orally and then they have to write it on their own onto their paper. This activity is designed to help the children put the skills that we have learned during the first semester together. We practice using sight words, practice spelling words that work on our spelling pattern for the day, and practice sounding out unknown words during this time. We also practice using something that we call COPS rules. This means that we are looking for appropriate capitals, organization of the sentence, correct punctuation, and correct spelling of words. After everyone has written out their sentence individually, we check their work together. I am so proud of the class and the amount of growth that I have seen is fantastic!
We have started a new social studies unit in class this past week about neighborhoods. We have been learning about what types of things you could find in a neighborhood (buildings, water, roads, houses, etc.). After we discussed what you could find in a neighborhood, each child had the chance to create their own neighborhood. We then discussed how to keep each neighborhood around so we could remember what they looked like and the idea of a map was introduced. We looked at several different maps to get a good idea of how to create one and then the children made their own version of their neighborhood map in class.
During our shared reading time, we have wrapped up our discussion of seasons. We compared and contrasted the different seasons in class. We talked about each person's favorite season. We also talked about how to recognize the different seasons when looking outside. Next week, we will be starting our communities theme. We will be learning about different communities and community helpers during this time.
When working on math skills during center time, I have been having the kids work on basic adding skills. This is something that you can start working on at home if you are not already practicing. This semester the children will be working on basic adding and subtracting skills, learning to tell time to the hour and half hour, money (coin/dollar recognition and their values), and story problem writing. These are all great skills to continue to work on at home as well as counting by 2's, 5's, and 10's to 100 or beyond. If you really want to challenge your child, have them try to count by 2's, 5's, or 10's backwards. :)
Last week we finished up our NWEA testing. The kids did a great job. The district will be emailing you the scores when the become available.
Today, I have sent home a book order for the months of January and February. Please take a look. There are some great titles available for purchase. If you are interested, I will be sending in my order on Thursday, January, 28th.
Finally, with the weather changing I just wanted to remind everyone about sending in appropriate cold weather clothing for your child. We do go outside as long as it is 20 degrees or above with the windchill factored in. If you would like to send in snow boots on days that we have snow outside, that would be fine. Please just send in a change of shoes if your child is wearing boots. We will change shoes when we go outside to play.
Sorry this was so long this week, I had a lot of updating that I wanted to share with you! Have a great rest of the week and enjoy your weekend!
I am so excited to share about our writing block in class. We have put all of the skills and topics that we have learned about during the first semester to use. We have started to write "books" with multiple pages. I have challenged each child to try to write a detailed story with a clear beginning, middle, and end. We have had so many different topics to share! Lots of new ideas have been formed from our sharing time. We have had stories about moms, batman, snow, and food to name a few. We are moving into our new writing unit about writing informational stories. These are stories that we can use to teach others about the facts that we know. We will be using the idea of multiple pages in books to help us write step by step ideas on "how-to" do different tasks in the next few weeks of school.
Your child is bringing home some OG papers today and you may have noticed that we have started working on a new skill. We have added sentence dictation to our daily routine. I dictate a sentence to the children orally and then they have to write it on their own onto their paper. This activity is designed to help the children put the skills that we have learned during the first semester together. We practice using sight words, practice spelling words that work on our spelling pattern for the day, and practice sounding out unknown words during this time. We also practice using something that we call COPS rules. This means that we are looking for appropriate capitals, organization of the sentence, correct punctuation, and correct spelling of words. After everyone has written out their sentence individually, we check their work together. I am so proud of the class and the amount of growth that I have seen is fantastic!
We have started a new social studies unit in class this past week about neighborhoods. We have been learning about what types of things you could find in a neighborhood (buildings, water, roads, houses, etc.). After we discussed what you could find in a neighborhood, each child had the chance to create their own neighborhood. We then discussed how to keep each neighborhood around so we could remember what they looked like and the idea of a map was introduced. We looked at several different maps to get a good idea of how to create one and then the children made their own version of their neighborhood map in class.
During our shared reading time, we have wrapped up our discussion of seasons. We compared and contrasted the different seasons in class. We talked about each person's favorite season. We also talked about how to recognize the different seasons when looking outside. Next week, we will be starting our communities theme. We will be learning about different communities and community helpers during this time.
When working on math skills during center time, I have been having the kids work on basic adding skills. This is something that you can start working on at home if you are not already practicing. This semester the children will be working on basic adding and subtracting skills, learning to tell time to the hour and half hour, money (coin/dollar recognition and their values), and story problem writing. These are all great skills to continue to work on at home as well as counting by 2's, 5's, and 10's to 100 or beyond. If you really want to challenge your child, have them try to count by 2's, 5's, or 10's backwards. :)
Last week we finished up our NWEA testing. The kids did a great job. The district will be emailing you the scores when the become available.
Today, I have sent home a book order for the months of January and February. Please take a look. There are some great titles available for purchase. If you are interested, I will be sending in my order on Thursday, January, 28th.
Finally, with the weather changing I just wanted to remind everyone about sending in appropriate cold weather clothing for your child. We do go outside as long as it is 20 degrees or above with the windchill factored in. If you would like to send in snow boots on days that we have snow outside, that would be fine. Please just send in a change of shoes if your child is wearing boots. We will change shoes when we go outside to play.
Sorry this was so long this week, I had a lot of updating that I wanted to share with you! Have a great rest of the week and enjoy your weekend!
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