Friday Facts...

Happy Friday!

This week has been jam packed with skills!  I have introduced most our routines and everyone has been doing a fantastic job learning the new skills.  We have been working hard during our OG time.  I have introduced the letters a, t, b, l, f, h, p, and s.  I have introduced them in that order.  During this time, we work on proper formation of each letter, learning the sound and how to correctly say it, and the keyword to go along with each word.  We have also been using a strategy called skywriting to help up learn this.  This is where we pretend our fingers are a pencil and we write in the air.  Next week we will continue to work on more letters and add in a response sheet during this time block.  If you would like to help practice this at home, you can ask your child what sounds does ___(a letter)___ make or what is the keyword for __(a letter)__.

Our centers this week have been focused on basic letters and numbers.  We have eight centers each week.  Our red center is where we practice math skills.  This week, the children worked on number recognition skills.  Orange and Green centers are computer centers.  This week, we worked with the website abcmouse.com.  We will do various programs throughout the school year.  Yellow center is our writing practice center.  This week the children practiced writing the letters of the alphabet.  Pink center is where we practice fine motor skills.  The kids had dry erase markers and boards to practice writing skills at this table.  The next center is purple center.  This is our word work center.  This week, the children practiced recognizing upper and lower case letters.  The final two centers are blue and white.  These centers are used for the children to work on skills with my assistant, Mrs. Rohan.  This week the children learned how to make a graph and analyze it.

We have started our first Social Studies Unit in class.  We are learning about what it means to get along with others.  During this chapter, we have been talking about how it is important to be a good listener by taking turns when talking and why it is important to look someone in the eyes when you are talking.  We will continue to work on this chapter next week as well.

We have officially started our NWEA testing.  On Wednesday and Friday we took the math portion of the test.  Everyone has been doing a great job!  Next week, we will work on the language arts section of the test.

Finally, we met with our fifth grade buddies on Friday.  Our buddy classroom is Mrs. Thiel’s room.  The children spent some time getting to know their buddy and we worked on making a paper person to help describe each partner. 

I hope everyone has a great weekend!