K-2's Weekly News (Jan. 23-25)

For a short week, we sure were busy in K-2!  Read on to find out what we have been up to!

Math
This week in math we practiced counting by 10's both orally and by writing the numbers in sequence.  For an extra challenge, we also practiced counting on by 10's starting with numbers greater than 10.

We introduced a new math game this week as well called "Top It," or as you may know it--"War."  In this game, each player starts with a set of cards numbered 0-20.  Players flip over one card at a time, and the player with the larger number takes both cards.  The students LOVED playing this game and did a great job identifying the larger number.

In order to build a foundation for adding and subtracting numbers, we used our interactive whiteboard to play a number line game where students had to either hop forward (add) or hop backward (subtract) from a given number.  Take a peek at the picture below to see how we played this game.  We reinforce this concept of "counting on" each morning during our calendar routine when we add one more day to our class number line.  I always ask the students, "How many more hops until we get to the next 10?" The students are so used to our routine by now that they have their hands raised before I can even ask the question!

Literacy/Social Science
This week we wrapped up our animal themed unit in Treasures.  We finished our workbook pages for Unit 5 and sent home a new sight word book.  We also read a sweet story called Mole and Baby Bird about a mole who rescues an abandoned baby bird.  Mole wants to keep the bird and makes a cage so the bird won't fly away.  It isn't until Grandpa takes Mole for a walk up on a high hill where he feels like he could fly that Mole realizes his baby bird is meant to be free.  

We also read two wolf-themed books this week.  The first book we read was called Footprints in the Snow, which was about a wolf who was tired of reading stories about mean and nasty wolves, so he decided to write his own book about a nice and kind wolf.  His story starts out great but quickly goes awry when he starts writing about a plump and tasty duck!! 

The second book we read this week was called Wolf's Coming!  After reading several pages of this book, we stopped when the wolf was about to enter the house, and the students wrote down a prediction of what they thought the wolf was going to do next.  Just about everyone predicted that the wolf was going to eat all the animals in the house.  After writing down our predictions, we continued to read to the end of the story where we found a very surprising twist---a surprise birthday party for Wolf!

After reading a Time for Kids magazine article, we learned that Martin Luther King, Jr. believed that all people should be treated equally and kindly.  We completed an activity together showing different ways children could be kind to one another, and then the students wrote about one way that they could be kind to others.  They did a great job with this writing activity!

At the end of the week, our class joined Mrs. Schellinger's class to watch the movie The Snowman, which is a movie based on a wordless children's book about a boy who builds a snowman that comes to life and takes him on a magical adventure to the North Pole.  This beautifully animated movie has no words, just music and images to tell the story.  The children loved the movie, and they had a great time creating winter scenes of their own!

Hope everyone has a great week!

Thank you for reading!