Hi Fish Families!

Happy New Year!
Here is a glimpse of our week in the fish class:

Language Arts: We have been busy "fancying up" our first writing piece this week. The children chose a writing piece to publish and worked on editing. Today, we had a writing museum to celebrate. We walked around looking at, complimenting and celebrating our first published piece! We will begin a writing unit on List Books next week. In Shared Reading, we noticed that sentences begin with uppercase letters and the rest of the letters used in print are lowercase. During Writers' Workshop we worked on talking about our books with partners. At this age we begin by discussing parts we liked and why. We also learned how to shop for just right books. We love choosing our books on our own! The children learned a new reading strategy. They now know how important it is for a reader to take a picture walk before reading a book. This gets our minds ready to read.

Math: The children played a (+) and (-) game this week. They are getting good at recognizing these symbols and knowing what they mean. Generally, the children would benefit from more board game playing when busy schedules permit it. Turn taking and knowing where to move on a game board seemed challenging to some of them. We took cut-apart 100 boards and re-assembled them looking for patterns. The children seemed to enjoy this activity. We discussed perseverance and how good it felt to work hard and complete a challenging task! We continue to work on estimating skills.

App of the Week:  Quickimages (This works on subitizing skills. We all used the 10 frame and some children used the 20 frame option)

Song of the Week:  The Numeral Song by Dr. Jean

Book of the Week:  The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats

Up-coming Events:

• Handwriting- p, r & n
• Phonics- x and y
• Word of the Week-can
• No School- Mon., 1/20
• Early Release- Wed.,1/29

Donation Requests:

• Valentine stickers