March 31, 2017

Hi!

The children filled the fish jar last week and I'm hoping you heard all about the game day they had last Friday. Here are some pictures of the fun.

Up-coming Events:

• Word of the Week-you
• Handwriting- m, h and b
• Early Release/Parent Conferences- 4/5 and 4/12
• Jump Rope for Heart- 4/21 at 1:30
• April Vacation- 4/24-4/28

Hopefully this weekend will be the last we see of this winter weather!

Kristen

Monday, 3/27/17

Hi Fish Families.

We enjoyed the Elephant and Piggie play at the Music Hall last week. Thank you to all of our parent chaperones!

We sent home new math homework tonight. Math facts will be a part of our homework routines for the remainder of the year. We will be adding to these flashcards about every other week. 

Readers' Workshop:  We have been busy learning about how readers check their reading to make sure it looks right, sounds right, and makes sense. If it doesn't, they need to go back and fix it. A new challenge is emerging in many books the children are reading. The illustrations are more involved and the tricky words are becoming more complex. The children are practicing using the whole picture instead of just quick checking the picture to figure out the words. They are having to think about what they see and what is happening. We are calling this "extra strength picture power." We are also finding "snap words/sight words in disguise (i.e. looking, looked, sees, coming, going, playing). We will be finishing up our "Bigger Books, Bigger Reading Muscles" unit next week.

Writers' Workshop:  We are beginning our "How-To" writing unit. I've been reading them lots of teaching books and we are in the process of brainstorming things we are experts at and can teach others how to do. The children learned that writers study the kind of text they intend to make.

Math Workshop: 

We are working on measurement right now. We cut string as long as each student and will be using next week for math activities. Some math vocabulary we are using is; longer, shorter, about the same, length, height, long and tall. We have been following sorting rules where we sort by attributes (i.e. having all students wearing red stand up and the students try to figure out the attribute they were sorted by.) 

Visual Arts: The children made paper kites and decorated them with various collage materials.

Some Books We Read: The Wind Blew, Wake Up, It's Spring, Bear Wants More, Interrupting Chicken

Up-Coming Events:

Handwriting- r and n

Word of the Week- go

Parent/ Teacher Conferences- Wednesday 4/5 and Wednesday, 4/12 *These are both Early Release Days

April Vacation- 4/24-4/28

Fondly,
Kristen

Friday, March 10, 2017

Greetings!

Our dramatic play area is being changed to a grocery store. Our store will be opening on Monday. The children are excited to get in there to play! 

You may hear about our new lunch tables this weekend. We are trying assigned tables for a few weeks. The children have been having lots of conflict and hurt feelings when finding a table at lunch. We had a class discussion about how sometimes adults need to help find solutions to problems when children are having a hard time working things out on their own. The children randomly picked a crayon and were assigned to that color table.  After lunch today, I sought out feedback from the children about the new tables. Generally, it was very positive. I am confident that mixing combinations up for a few weeks will expose them to new friendships and flexibility to mingle with other peers.

Visual Arts: We have been painting rainbows, making pots of gold and sun catcher shamrocks. 

Readers' Workshop: The focus this week has been on letter-sound knowledge and how it helps when reading. The children worked on using their phonics skills to read unknown words. As our books get trickier, the words do, too. Many words are beginning with consonant blends (st, bl, br), so readers need to start looking past the initial sound in a word. We also learned that we need to read through the end of a word, too. (e.g. sat, sad & sand all begin the same and the end of the word is what helps us figure them out.) When the children get nervous reading a more challenging book they can quickly scan for sight words they do know on a page. This gives them a confident boost before reading. 

Writers' Workshop: We are finishing up our personal narrative unit. The children chose their favorite "true story about their lives" and began the process of editing/improving their piece. They worked in partnerships to get ideas of what they could add to their stories to make them better. We will continue this work next week.

Math Workshop: Your math thinkers have been busy playing dice addition games and working on double ten frames and tricky teens. The children are practicing number writing, as well. We finished Unit #5 and are working on the unit assessment. Those letters should be coming home at the end of next week. 

Literacy Centers: We learned about silent e at the end of words this week. We call him King Ed and he makes superstars say their own name. We practiced reading many cvce words, worked on handwriting and did activities reinforcing the word we. 

Up-Coming Events:

Word of the Week- my
Handwriting- j and p
Phonics-oo
Early Release- Thursday, 3/16
No School- Friday, 3/17
Author Visit & Music Hall Field Trip- Wednesday, 3/22


Donation Requests:

• Foam soap

Don't forget to spring the clocks forward!

Kristen