Welcome Back from Break: Week of January 3 - 7

Happy New Year!

Winter Theme

We welcomed back the kids with our winter theme this week.  We have created and are adding to our KWL chart about winter.  The children made a list of what they KNOW about winter, what they WANT to know about winter, and what they have LEARNED about winter.  We have been reading books with winter ideas, characters, and signs of winter all week.  Before we read the stories we look at the questions we had about winter and think about them during the story.  After we read the stories we write on the chart to show what we have learned about winter.
The students also have been experimenting with freezing water.  They made predictions about what would happen to a jar of water when placed in the freezer.  On Monday we will look at the jars and and talk about how our predictions matched up.  The children also predicted how long it will take to freeze water.
The children are writing what they know and are learning about winter in their journals.  Some are working on story dictation while others are working on labeling their pictures.
We have shared some poems and chants about winter as well.  The children really enjoyed the poem 5 Little Snowmen, which allowed the children to work on subtracting skills when the snow melted the snowmen away.  When they first heard the poem we orally said 5-1+=4, but on the second time around we wrote on the white board 5-2=3 so they could see different ways to subtract from 5.
Morning Message
The class has been working on syllables in the morning meeting.  It has been a busy time in the morning as we target skills such as beginning sounds, ending sounds, missing words, popcorn words, syllables, counting letters in their names, spelling names out loud, and tracking the words in the message.  They have taken over the Blast Off game to spell sight words and have decided they will pretend they are popcorn pieces instead of a rocketship and say, "POP!" at the end of the word instead of Blast Off.  
Now the game goes as follows:  student: If they see a popcorn word they say, "POP!"  The class gets down low and says, "What word do you see?"  Student:  "and."  The class then says each letter a-n-d, while slowly rising up.  When they reach the end of the word everyone jumps and says, "POP!"  Try this game at home with a variety of sight words.  Although in their individual reading groups they will identify a variety of sight words at their own pace, in the morning meeting we have identified "and, is" as the popcorn words of this week.

Fine Motor Center

Everyone participated in sewing this week.  Sewing is a great way to strengthen hand muscles which reinforces good handwriting skills.  

Language Arts Center

Everyone worked on their rhyming skills this week in the language arts center.  They had a variety of games that were leveled according to their expertise and they challenged each other to complete game boards and memory games.  Rhyming is a great way to reinforce phonics skills and assist with reading.  Rhyming can be done anytime and anywhere.  Nonsense words are accepted and encouraged!  Try rhyming games at home to build literacy skills.

Art Center

Incorporating math and fine motor skills into the art center turned into a terrific snowman activity this week.  The children counted how many letters are in their first name and added one to that number.  Next they cut out the correlating number of circles to make a snowman.  They drew a face on the top circle and wrote one letter of their first name in each of their circles.  We are creating a graph of how many letters are in each persons name and we will compare using more, less, and equal to next week during circle time.

Math Center

Understanding patterns is a basic skill needed in Math to understand why things work together. Patterns help solve problems and can be found everywhere in designs, shapes and groups of numbers. Helping a child to notice patterns in his or her world is an important skill to learn and fun to work on together.

When working together creating patterns, children will here the words as copy, repeat, create, and extend. Children should know that the core of a pattern should repeat three times to be a complete pattern. Children should be able to repeat and extend a pattern and extend the patterns others have started.

 Check out the scarves hanging in the classroom where you will see AB, AAB, ABB, ABBA, and ABC patterns!

Reading Groups

We have really gotten a routine down for working in small and individual reading groups in the morning and during small group/theme time.  The children are working on sight word books, cvc (consonant vowel consonant) books, and predictable text.  They are working on fluency when reading.  They are chopping up words to hear the sounds then squishing them back together to figure the word out.  Everyone works at their own pace and at their own level.  Some children are working on letter identification while others are reading and answering comprehension questions.

Third Grade Reading Buddies

Our third grade reading buddies came back this week on Thursday and shared lots of books with us!  It is so nice to have them in our classroom and to share this time with them.

Outside Fun

A Peek Ahead

Next week we have language arts center, math, independent, and art centers.  We will continue our study of winter and incorporate Polar animals into the theme next week.  We will be continuing to work on syllables, individualized reading skills, and math skills.    

Week of December 13-17

Our Week Before the Winter Break!

The Gingerbread Man was on the loose!  The children started the week by conducting a scientific experiment.  They first predicted what would happen if the Gingerbread Man did not take the Fox up on his offer to ride across the river.  Each child thought of what would happen if the Gingerbread Man jumped into the river and swam across the river on his own.  Then we tested our predictions by placing three gingerbread cookies in water and watched them swim.  We took one cookie out at 1 minute and saw that it was mushy.  We took the second cookie out at 3 minutes and it was falling apart.  Finally we took the third cookie out after 5 minutes and it broke apart!  Our poor Gingerbread Men!  They wouldn't have lasted even without the Fox! The children then thought about if they were a Gingerbread Man how to get across the river and not get caught from all the townspeople! They drew some amazing pictures telling their stories of how they would capture a gingerbread cookie.  Some drew gingerbread girls, boys, dogs, cats, men, and even a Gingerbread Superman!  These beautiful illustrations and funny stories are hanging in the classroom.
We shared a book called, The Nutcracker so we could be prepared for the spectacular field trip on Thursday.  Some of the children knew the story and some children remembered their trip to the Noble Horse Theater last year!  Everyone was really excited for the trip and very well behaved when we went on Thursday.

We finished our centers that spilled over from last week.  The beanstalk measurements are hanging in the hallway.  The children all loved writing in flour and how messy they got!  The introduction to popcorn words was a big hit as well as the introduction to the game, Blast Off!  Every one's finger puppets were put together nicely.  The children followed three step directions to cut, glue, then decorate their puppets very well!  The technology center was utilized too and the children were happy to exert their independence and play games on the computers and leap pads without assistance.

On Wednesday, the children worked on a special surprise for Mom's and Dad's that they and I cannot share with you until Christmas or the New Year!  Your surprise will have to wait!  While the children worked on these special gifts, they had independent center time and they also worked in Reading Groups too.  Each child is working at their own pace in their understanding of reading and they will continue to work with me in the mornings on reading and during small group/them study work time.  Language Arts centers always focuses on reading activities too.  Each lesson is basically the same but differentiated for each child within the group to make sure their skills are being reviewed and challenged.

On Friday we had a very special wrap up to our Fairy Tales and Gingerbread theme!  The children helped mix up gingerbread batter to create Gingerbread Friends.  While we baked those gingerbread friends, we made them houses too.  When we finished we went into the kitchen to pick them up from Ms. Mira they were gone!  A note was left that said, Haha!  The old man and old woman tried to catch us but we were too fast!  You can try too, we ran to a place where you play games and activities.  We safely went to Mr. B in the gym, where we found another clue that said, "We were here but now we are gone.  We went to a place where you could get a drink of water."  We walked to the Lower School drinking fountain next.  The note there said, "We were here but now we are gone.  We went to a place where you learn new songs!"  We went down the stairs to Mr. Hunter's music room.  Another note was left there that said, "We were here but now we are gone!  We went to a place where you learn and work with your JK friends."  When we came back into the classroom, we discovered our gingerbread friends in our gingerbread houses!  We had captured them after all and boy they were yummy.

A Peek Ahead

The morning meeting will focus on new skills such as syllables, the months of the year and the new year!  During centers the class will focus on winter patterns in the math center, differentiated rhyming activities and reading skills in the literacy center, graphing names and creating snowmen in the art center, sewing bears in the fine motor center, and computer games in the independence center.
Our theme will focus on the winter season.  We will be creating a KWL chart (what do you Know about winter, what do you Want to know about winter, and what have you Learned about winter) throughout our theme.  We will be talking about the signs that tell us winter is here.  We will be creating art activities and reading lots of books about the winter season.  We will also be conducting science experiments with water, ice, and snow.  We will be charting the temperature outside with a thermometer and watching as the temperature rises and falls. In the last few weeks of our Winter theme, we will be learning about hibernation and studying animals in the northern and southern regions.