With Mother's Day quickly approaching, the kiddos raced the clock to complete your Mother's Day gifts and cards on time. It truly amazes me to see how much they can accomplish in such a short amount of time. As I walked around the room, they were all so eager to "show of" their work. They worked so hard coloring their cards to make them look like their mommies. The most exciting part was when I painted their hands! They laughed when the wet paint brush touched their fingers! I hope you enjoy your gifts! The children loved coloring in the insert on the flower pots and creating the flowers with their cute little faces as the flower's center!
After we read the story once in this manner, we read it all together with choral reading.
Then, the students "made a movie in their heads." I told them to close their eyes and picture the story. Then, I asked someone to describe what they saw in their movie, discussing each sentence. Finally, I modeled retelling the story in my own words and asked a student to retell it in their own words. I was thrilled to see that each child's version was slightly different. Below is a copy of the story if you would like to have your child retell it at home :)
In Math this week, we played the "Missing Number Problems" game. With the class watching and counting out loud, I placed 4 objects into a bag and wrote a 4 on the board to help the children remember the starting number. The children closed their eyes while I changed the number of objects in the bag. I explained that they will be detectives and figure out how many objects I added to or subtracted from the bag. While children's eyes were closed, I added 2 objects to the bag and then had the children open their eyes. Then, we emptied the bag and counted the objects. I recorded the total, which was 6, on the board and the children helped me write a number sentence that showed the action I took to get from the starting number to the ending number: 4 + 2 = 6. I also took some of the objects out of the bag to create subtraction number sentences!
The next day, we had some fun creating number stories using calculators. Of course, I let the children play with their calculators before the lesson began. Some of them wrote their phone numbers into their calculators while others came up with the "biggest number in the word."
After some calculator exploration, I told an addition number story: I had 6 lollipops. I got 4 more. Then I had 10 lollipops. I accompanied the story by recording both the numbers and symbols on the board: 6+4=10 while the children followed along by pressing the appropriate keys on their calculators. After a few addition stories, I told a subtraction story: I had 10 lollipops. I ate 2. How many did I have left? I wrote the number story on the board with numbers and symbols as the children pressed the appropriate keys on their calculators. 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!
In Literacy this week, we read some stories about tree homes and discussed the different animals/insects that call trees "home." The children wrote in their journals "A tree can be a home" and illustrated a picture to match. Take a look :)
Take Care,
Miss Visicaro