I apologize for this late post- one of my longtime family friends got married this weekend and I didn't have computer access.
I want to start by sharing some class highlights from this past week :)
In Fundations, letters b, f, m, and n were added to our collection of letters introduced/practiced. The students completed a variety of activities that reinforced these letters/sounds throughout the week including echoing (repeating) letter name-keyword-sound, skywriting, and sound dictation. The children were introduced to their "magnetic journals" to help them identify letter sounds. They also learned that sentences start with a capital letter and end with a period.
In math, your children learned how to count backward by ones by singing and acting out the song "Five Little Monkeys" using their fingers and unifix cubes. Also in math, your children learned how to sort various shapes according to different attributes (i.e. size, color, shape, thickness, etc). It was so nice to see them working together as a team to sort the pile of blocks given to them. The next day, we conducted a class experiment about capacity. To begin, I held up two different containers (one long and skinny and one short and wide). I asked the children which container would hold more pony beads. We then tallied our predictions. When asked how we could prove one container held more beads than the other, the children said we could fill the larger container and pour the beads into the smaller container. If the beads spilled out or overflowed, their prediction would be correct. We did just that. The children watched eagerly as I carefully filled the taller yet skinner container with beads and poured them into the smaller/wider container with the very same beads. They were shocked to discover that both containers held the same exact amount of beads! We concluded that just because a container appears larger (i.e. taller) doesn't mean it holds more. We also looked at a bar graph which displayed our class birthday information. The children analyzed the graph and gathered that March has the most birthdays in the class.
Another highlight of our week was the start of our guided reading/literacy centers. Your children rotated between 5 stations/centers as I pulled several students to assess them on their letter recognition. Read about these stations below:
1. Journal Writing Station- the children were encouraged to use "kid writing" to write about something of particular interest to them. Picture cards were available for their use to help them pick a topic if they had a hard time coming up with what to write about.
5. Puzzle Center
These centers were a huge hit! It would be fantastic if you could spend a couple minutes a day reviewing bother uppercase and lowercase letters with your child. Remember, parents are teachers too :) Your support at home is greatly appreciated!
Finally, the most exciting part of our week was starting our gingerbread man unit. The children heard many different versions of the story (we compared/contrasted them all), decorated their very own paper gingerbread man, and drew a picture of themselves running away from the gingerbread man, which will soon turn into a class book that will be shared with all of you! On Thursday we formed/decorated our gingerbread man out of dough (i.e. play dough). I told the children that I would put him in the oven when they were at special. When they returned, I explained that the gingerbread man ran out of the oven when I went to check on him. I told them he ran so fast that I lost him! On Friday, the gingerbread man left us clues to help us find him. These clues brought us to the library, the gym, and the office. The last clue written explained that he might be somewhere at the mall. I guess we have to keep searching! They were so cute during our hunt! Many of them told me they saw his crumbs on the floor! If you go on a business trip or a vacation, please send us a postcard from the gingerbread man so we can keep track of his travels (and learn some geography skills while we are at it!)
Check out our gingerbread man display below:
Miss Visicaro: "Okay friends, we are going to go to library now. Do we remember our library teacher's name?"
Students: "Mrs. Fox!"
Child whispering to another child in line: "Is Mrs. Fox really a fox?"
Too funny!!!!!