Dear Fish Families:
Here is a glimpse of our week:
Writers' Workshop: We have begun our "List Book" unit. We have been reading lots of list books and talking about characteristics. The children are great at finding the patterns that list books have. We are also working on identifying the 1 idea or topic. We will begin writing our own list books next week after we learn a few more characteristics.
Readers' Workshop: We have been using the pattern to help us read our "just right" books. The children chose new reading spots this week and were assigned new partners. They seemed excited about the changes. I have been working on mid-year assessments for our progress reports. The growth these children are making is AMAZING to see!
Literacy: The children learned about lowercase letters. We began with c, o, and s which aren't formed differently, just smaller. It helps the difficult transition to the use of lowercase letters. I read a few versions of The Mitten during shared reading. We compared the stories, focusing on similarities and differences. We also are working on retelling stories. Before break, the children were working on concept sorts in preparation for their spelling sorts. This week, the children began their individualized sorts depending on where they are as writers. Most of them are at the stage where they are sorting by initial consonant sounds, some are sorting by long and short vowel sounds.
Math: We have LOTS of mid-year assessment going on this month! The results will be reflected on our progress reports. Meanwhile, we have found time to introduce the pan balance as a tool to help measure light and heavy. The children worked in small groups to explore with the balances. Next, they were asked to measure from lightest to heaviest. This was done without adult assistance. All of the groups ended sorting the objects into two piles (light and heavy).
Here is a picture one of the groups took to record their work.
 |
| Individual center sort |
 |
| Whole class sort |
Visual Arts: Snow people are everywhere in the fish class! The children painted sparkly snowpeople and used cray pas to add details. They then created 3D sculpture versions using model magic. They painted background using water paints to make another creation on Monday. We also made symmetry mittens.
Book of the Week: The Mitten by Jan Brett
Song of the Week: "The Numeral Song" by Dr. Jean (We used a video version focusing on number formation)
Up Coming Events:
- Word of Week- to
- Handwriting- v and w
- Phonics- j (ch was our focus this week)
- No school- Monday, 1/19/15
Stay warm,
Kristen
No comments:
Post a Comment