I first wanted to say how incredibly thankful I am for such wonderful classes. I truly am so blessed to have such an incredibly sweet and caring group of children.
What made me feel even more special was the plethora of homemade cards, birthday wishes and hugs your little ones gave to me on Thursday. I was incredibly humbled to see the children busily working on birthday goodies for me and the smiles on their faces when they presented them to me! How adorable! They really helped to make my birthday extra special and one I will certainly never forget!
Thank you to our wonderful class moms for organizing my birthday surprise! Thank you for the beautiful flowers and gift card as well :)
In Math, the children played "Car Race." I explained that the goal is for the children to work together to move all three counters to the 10 space on the track. I emphasized that the counters must land exactly on the 10 space; they cannot go past it. I demonstrated a few rounds of the game with a child and then the children played the game in pairs. Here is how to play:
1 Place a "car" counter on the 0 space on each of the tracks on the gameboard.
2 Player 1 rolls the die and decides which counter(s) to move. The player can split the roll across two or three cars or move one car the full amount.
3 Player 2 rolls the die and repeats Step 2.
5 Play ends when all 3 counters have reached the 10 space exactly.
After some calculator exploration, I told addition number stories while the children followed along by pressing the appropriate keys on their calculators to solve.
After a few addition stories, I told subtraction stories as the children pressed the appropriate keys on their calculators to solve. It was so refreshing to see how some of the children took it upon themselves to help out their friends that needed some assistance with finding some of the keys on their calculators. They are little teachers in the making! Click on the link to practice these number stories with your child at home :)
![](http://www.weebly.com/weebly/images/file_icons/pdf.png)
number_stories_with_calculators.pdf |
During Writer's Workshop, I explained to the children that many times, a writer will forget what they wanted to write, especially if they are busy trying to spell one word. If this happens to them, I told them they can look back up at the picture. The picture can remind them of the story, and all of the words they wanted to write. That is why we draw all of our pictures first. We also discussed the following story writing steps: Think, Touch and Tell, Draw and Write (including the who, where and what) and adding speech bubbles.
On Friday, we discussed Earth Day! We studied the three R’s (Reduce, Reuse, Recycle) and conserving our natural resources by turning off the lights and TV when they are not in use, picking up litter, and turning off the faucet when brushing our teeth. We read a book that was made from 100% recycled materials and read an Earth Day emergent reader.
During Literacy Centers, the children rotated through the following 5 stations:
- Writing Center- children filled in the missing digraphs on each page and colored in the pictures.
- Reading Center- children read nonfiction easy readers.
- Math Center- children worked on their number scrolls.
- Play dough Center- Children formed trick words with play dough, read and traced each word, and read and traced each sentence with the trick word in it.
- ABC Center: Children identified the beginning sounds to spell sight words.
I hope everyone has a wonderful weekend!
Take Care,
Mrs. Nork