Week of February 20 -24

We celebrated another Birthday this week!!!  Happy Birthday, Eliot.  Thank you for the yummy cupcakes and to Eliot's mom for reading us a very funny story!

 

We continued to focus on our theme "Good Friends."  We have read many stories about what makes a good friend and how we can be good friends too.  The children have been listening to stories about friendship.  Before each story I ask them to think about how the characters are showing that they are good friends.  We have made lists about how good friends share, play nicely, say please, thank you, and good friends even say, "I am sorry."  We have talked about our feelings and that it is OK for one of our good friends to not feel the same way as we do or to want to play the same thing as us.  In order to further understand this, the children have been putting "tickets" in the a "Good Friend bucket."  When someone helps us, shares with us, takes turns, uses manners, says sorry, etc.  then we put a ticket in the good friend bucket and at the end of the day, the class counts them to see how many times kids in the class felt like someone was being a good friend.  Our record this week was 22 tickets in the bucket!

The morning meeting continues to be a sacred time of learning for the JK kids.  We have added a new component to the meeting time and that is to add how many children are present for the day and how many are home that day.  Then we show a number sentence on the board such as 19+3=22.  The children are intrigued by this math component that we have added to the meeting.  The new jobs in the classroom are working nicely, we have 2 cubby helpers everyday, checking the cubby space to make sure things are properly put inside the cubbies and not all over the floor.  We have a morning greeter that hands out the children's attendance sticks and says good morning to each person in the class.  Finally, the attendance helper that counts the sticks and helps write the number sentence on the board. 

Centers this week were enjoyed by all.  In the math center, the children used the candied hearts from Valentine's day to complete a bar graph.  They sorted the colors of the candies and added them to their proper columns, then they either verbally answered questions about the most or the least or they wrote it down themselves.  Some of the children were further challenged by finding out how many more of one color they had than another or by adding two colors together to see how many.

In the language arts center, the children practiced rhyming words with the -op word family.  They listed rhyming words on the board so they could not only hear the rhyme but also see the pattern.  They read a take home book called, The Cop and circled popcorn words and practiced writing beginning letter sounds. 

In the fine motor center, the children combined their math skills with strengthening their muscles in their hands by stringing beads.  They were able to count the beads, make patterns, and sort beads.  Then they strung them onto string. 

In the technology center, the children chose from listening to a story on tape or using the Leap Pad computers which has them listen to stories while interacting with math and phonics games. 

In small groups, the children wrote in their journals about what makes friends, started creating a coloring book about friendship, made friendship bracelets for each other, and met in reading groups. 

Next week, we will tie in the good friends theme with an author study of Mo Willems.  Mo Willems is a talented author and illustrator.  The play that we are seeing on Thursday is an adaptation from his book Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus.  The text in his books are simple and creative.  The children will be interacting as we read, creating puppets, retelling the stories, learning new vocabulary, creating scenarios that are beyond what they hear in the stories, and relating the stories to their own world. 

Centers next week will be math, language arts, fine motor, and art.  We will have 7th grade reading buddies on Friday.  Our field trip is on Thursday to see Don't Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus.