This week was packed with lots of learning and energizing activities! To begin the week, we completed our center activities from last week.
This week's math center focused on patterning with a different attribute. Instead of making a pattern using color this time the children were to focus making a pattern with shapes. Some children worked on extending an AB (triangle, square) pattern , others created their own pattern using two parts, and others created their own pattern using three parts. The focus was the same for each child but they worked at their own pace and the lesson was differentiated to focus on their skills. With these manipulatives, the children are able to continue to work on counting objects as well as simple addition and subtraction problems.
In the language arts center, the children played an alphabet matching game on a Thanksgiving turkey board! The objective of the game was to identify the matching Capital letter with the lower case letter written on the turkey feathers. Each child had a turn to draw a feather from the pile and make a match. If that feather was not on their game board they put it back and the next player took his/her turn. Once a child had matched three feathers in a row they said, "gobble, gobble!" and the game boards were cleared and the game started over. Not only did the children work on upper and lower case identification but they were asked to review the letter sounds as well. This game is a wonderful opportunity to continue to support beginning phonics skills and review letter sounds.
The independent center focused on the new light table in the classroom. The children were able to freely explore the legos and build creative designs using their own imagination.
The art center was designed to help the children get in the spirit of Thanksgiving! The created turkeys with their hand prints. They painted their hand and thumb with brown paint and then the fingers with red, orange, or yellow for the feathers. The children enjoyed this sensory rich project and had fun creating their turkeys. Gobble, Gobble!
We created for centers for the children to rotate this week and they will finish them on Monday. Tuesday is our Grandparents Day celebration. We will be making a special center piece for each student and grandparent to take home. We hope that they will be enjoyed and treasured!
Our Social Studies theme has focused around Thanksgiving and Grandparents. We read a story about the first thanksgiving and discussed the Pilgrims and the Native Americans. After the book, we talked about why the Pilgrims and Native Americans were grateful for each others help. We read another story this week called, The Littlest Pilgrim and how she wanted to help the people in her village but everyone told her she was too little to help until she met a Native American girl and together the two of them were able to help each other. The class discussed ways that they help around their house! We also read the story, The Old Lady Who Swallowed a Turkey and then turned into a float for the Thanksgiving Day parade. Everyone made their own favorite food for the old lady to swallow that they might bring to a holiday dinner like Thanksgiving! Everyone learned a game that involved using oral language, listening skills, and memory recall called, "On Thanksgiving Day..." Each child started by saying on Thanksgiving Day I will bring... and then they listed their favorite food. The next person said, "On Thanksgiving Day I will bring..." and then they listed the person before them choice and then added their choice. For example, "On Thanksgiving Day I will bring a turkey." The next child says, "On Thanksgiving Day I will bring a turkey and a pie." We rotated every three or four children so as not to make the list too long:) Everyone also was able to fill out a booklet about the things they were grateful for. We played a rhyming game about hunting animals like you would a turkey and then letting the animals go. The children have been doing a super job in all of our rhyming activities which help build phonemic awareness and with their literacy skills. To practice shape identification, the children played a game to hide a turkey under a haystack with a shape on the outside like circle, rectangle, hexagon, etc. The children called out Turkey, turkey in the hay, Hiding on Thanksgiving Day! Then they guessed, "I think the turkey is under the purple circle haystack." We would peek under and then try again until the turkey was found.
Next week on Monday we will finish the four centers from this week with the final rotation. We will complete our books on being thankful and share those with each other. We will focus on the grandparents day visit for Tuesday. On Tuesday, the class will perform three songs with the Kindergarten class. When the grandparents come to visit in the classroom, we have a special project to complete with our guests.
There is no school on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday of next week.
December will take us into our Gingerbread Man and Fairy Tale Theme Study! We will be reading and comparing a variety of fairy tale stories and enjoying plenty of hands on projects.
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