K-2's Weekly News! (Feb. 19-22)

Math
This week we learned about sequencing events using a timeline, and we created a class book depicting our daily routine.  The children worked together in pairs to illustrate one of our daily activities.  They did a great job and made beautiful book!

We also spent some time this week reinforcing the concept of patterns.  The students used popsicle sticks to create several different stick patterns, and they recorded two of these patterns in their new math journals.  These journals will be used through the remainder of our math units and will be sent home at the end of the year.

We introduced a new math game this week as well called "Guess That Number!"  In this game, the students had to identify a specific number after a clue was given.  Here are some examples:

• What number comes between 19 and 20?
• What number comes before 12?
• What number comes after 17?
• What number is 2 less than 7?
• What number is 3 more than 1?

This is a great game to help students develop their number sense, and it's an easy game to play at home or when you're on the run in the car, which is where I find myself most afternoons! :)

Jolly Phonics

The students' sentences in their Jolly Phonics notebooks get better and better each week!  I am pleased to see many of the students starting their sentence with a capital letter, leaving spaces between words, and using an end mark.  Keep up the great work!  The students will have a new set of words to add to their notebooks on Monday.

Literacy/Social Studies
After the long weekend last week, the students did some writing about some of the things they did.  The children drew pictures of 3 different weekend activities and then wrote a sentence about each activity.  I was so impressed by their ideas and the quality of their writing!  I look forward to sharing their writing with you at conferences!

This week we continued our study of communities and focused on our neighborhood.  We read a story called Bus Stops about a bus that traveled through the town dropping off and picking people up at stops along the way.  After reading this story, we worked together to create a neighborhood map of our own. First we made a web that showed the different people, places, and things in our community.  Then the children illustrated different places in our neighborhood, and we created our map of "K-2 Town!"

We also read a Time For Kids magazine that focused on different ways we can help our community.  We worked in our workbooks a bit and introduced two new sight words--for and you.  A new sight word books was also sent home this week! 

We have also been focusing on blending and reading CVC words--words with a consonant, a vowel, and a consonant--and we have been working on sorting words into different "word families" that follow the same pattern.  This week we practiced reading words that followed the -at, -op, and -ug patterns.

George Washington

On Friday we spent some time celebrating and honoring George Washington's birthday.  We read a short biography about the life of George Washington and talked about his role as the 1st President of the United States of America.  We sang a song about him and looked for our sight words within the song.  We even created our own portraits of Washington, which are adorable!  Another exciting and productive week in K-2!

Thanks for reading!

K-2's Weekly News! (Feb. 11-15)

All About Me
It was Brendan's week to share his "Me Box" with the class, and we loved learning about some of his favorite things!  Brendan showed us his soccer trophy, which the class loved, especially his teammates. After sharing his photos, we learned that Brendan loves to go fishing up at his lake house, and he likes spending time with his family.  He also loves trading Pokemon and Ninjago cards, and the class was very excited when he showed us his Star Wars lightsaber!!

Math
This week in math we learned how to classify shapes by looking at three attributes--size, color, and shape.  We also spent time practicing how to solve addition and subtraction number stories and wrote down equations to match our thinking.  We completed some Valentine's Day themed patterning activities as well.

Jolly Phonics
Thank you so much for remembering to keep your child's notebook in his or her backpack.  We will be adding another sound blending sheet next week, and students will again be working to write a sentence using one of the words from the list.  I was very impressed with the students' sentences last week.  I can't wait to see what they come up with next week!

Literacy/Social Studies
This week we began Unit 6 in Treasures which focuses on neighborhoods.  We will be integrating this theme with our study of community helpers.  After introducing our new sight word for the week--are--and reading a story about a boy who helped out at a Chicago firehouse, we worked together as a class to talk about community helpers in our own neighborhood.  We organized our thinking with three question words--who, what, and where.  Who are our community helpers?  What do they do?  Where do they work?  The children did an outstanding job coming up with a list of helpers and talking about the different ways each worker helps the people in our community.  

On Friday, the students were thrilled with a surprise visit from a local community helper--Firefighter Dave!  He showed the students all the gear he needs to protect himself while he is helping others, and he also talked about several safety tips that students should know.  He showed them how to stop, drop, and roll, and he reviewed when it was okay to dial 911.  He also talked about having a family meeting location outside the house if there was ever an emergency and that it is important for children to know their address.  The children LOVED their visit with Firefighter Dave, and they were a great audience!

Lincoln's Birthday

On Tuesday, we spent some time learning about Abraham Lincoln.  After reading a short biography of Lincoln's life, we sang a song about Abe and explored the penny.  We talked about his life as a boy and how dedicated he was to learning even though he didn't go to school for very long.  Most of what he learned he learned by reading books!  We talked about how he became a lawyer and eventually President.  We even made our own log cabins using popsicle sticks!

Hope everyone is enjoying the long weekend!

Thanks for reading!

K-2's Weekly News (Feb. 4-8)

All About Me
This week Jack brought in a beautiful wooden "Me Box," and we learned about some of his favorite things.  After sharing some photos, we learned that Jack loves to go fishing and spend time at the beach with his family looking for shells!  He also likes to visit the zoo, especially around Halloween, and he even has a pet lizard of his own.  The class loved looking at the skin his lizard shed--so neat!

Math
This week we took some time to review some of the similarities and differences between some of the shapes we have been learning.  We talked about shapes with straight sides and shapes with curves.  We compared the number of sides and corners on different shapes, and we also talked about how a triangle is still a triangle even if you turn it upside down!

We used manipulatives this week to help us solve some simple addition equations as part of a Valentine's Day heart activity, and then we colored each sum with a different color.  The students also worked on finding the missing number in a series of number patterns.  We also completed a mini-assessment that looked to see if students could identify numbers that come before or after a given number.  This is a great activity to practice at home as it helps strengthen students' number sense skills.

100's Day
On Thursday we celebrated our 100th Day of School with a morning full of 100's day themed reading and writing activities.  We began the morning with a 100's day read aloud and then did some writing about 100 things we would like to eat..yum!!  We sang a song about the 100th day of school, and we used a 100's number chart to solve a mystery message.  We even worked in partners to create a 10-by-10 array of 100 objects.  It was a great day!  Take a peek at our arrays below.  (I apologize for not getting a photo of everybody.  Not sure how I did that!!)

Jolly Phonics

We did it!  We finished learning all 42 of the Jolly Phonics sounds.  The final three sounds we learned this week were:

ue as in "barbecue"

er as in "mixer"

ar as in "park"

We will continue to use our Jolly Phonics notebooks for homework, so please keep it in your child's backpack.  Also please continue to spend some time at home practicing the sounds we have learned, especially the sounds represented by two letters.  The more automatic these sounds become, the easier it is for students to recognize these sounds when reading and to recall them when trying to write new words.

Literacy

We concluded our study of Jan Brett this week.  We read Jan Brett's version of Goldilocks and the Three Bears as well as Jan Brett's The Three Snow Bears.  Then we used a Venn diagram to compare the similarities and differences between these two stories.  Later in the week, we spent some time comparing the different characters and settings of each of the books we read during our study of Jan Brett.  We recorded our ideas on a class poster that we will hang in our classroom.   

K-2's Weekly News (Jan. 28-Feb. 1)

The snow!  It came, and it finally feels like winter!  I hope the children get a chance to enjoy the snow while it lasts.  :)

All About Me
It was Arya's turn to bring in her "Me Box" this week and share some of her favorite things.  The class LOVED seeing Elfie, her holiday elf, and almost the whole class agreed that mac n' cheese was their favorite food too!  Arya also shared a tiny model of the Golden Gate Bridge and talked about her cousins who live in California.  She showed us a best friends necklace that she and her cousin share, and she also showed us how to write on her Boogie Board Tablet.  We all thought that was pretty neat!

Math

This week in math we used our interactive white board to practice solving addition number stories.  We also practiced how to record our thinking by writing down a number model ( 6 + 3 = 9 ).      

The children were also given an introduction to the calculator.  They explored the different keys, and they also practiced entering numbers on the calculator.  They practiced entering single digits first and then the numbers 10-20 as well!  February calendars were also sent home on Friday.  Please remember to have your chid practice tracing the numbers each day.  This is a great way to get some number writing practice in! 

Jolly Phonics

We began learning the final set of sounds this week, and by the end of next week the students will have leaned all 42 of the Jolly Phonics sounds!  Continue to practice these sounds with your child, especially the short and long vowel sounds as well as the sounds with two letter combinations.  Having all of these sounds in our tool belt now will greatly support the children as readers and writers.  This week we learned the following sounds:

qu as in "quack"

ou as in "ouch"

oi as in "oil"

Literacy

The children are loving our study of author and illustrator Jan Brett, and they can't get enough of the characters in her stories!  This week we have been busy writing and making connections to the stories we are reading.  We have also been sharpening our comprehension skills by taking a deeper and closer look at some of the strategies Jan Brett uses in her stories to make them more enjoyable and interesting to read.  Here are some of the Jan Brett stories we read this week!

We started out the week by reading one of Jan Brett's most well-known stories--The Mitten.  As we began reading the story about a boy who lost his mitten in the snow and the animals that burrowed themselves inside to stay warm, the students soon realized that Jan Brett's pictures not only helped tell the story, they also helped us predict what was going to happen next.  After reading The Mitten, the students then wrote about a connection they could make with the story.  We practiced summarizing the story by creating our own books that showed what happened in the beginning, middle, and the end of the story.  Later in the week, we practiced retelling the story using props, and then we made our own mittens with character pieces to retell the story at home. 

After The Mitten, we read another of Jan Brett's winter stories called The Hat about a girl who hangs her woolen clothes in the sun to air out for the winter and a hedgehog who becomes embarrassed when he gets one of her wool stockings stuck on his head.  After the other animals see how warm Hedgie must be, they all follow suit taking some of the girl's woolen clothes to keep warm.  After reading the story, we worked together as a class to compare the similarities and differences between The Mitten and The Hat using a Venn diagram. 

 

We finished up the week by reading Hedgie's Surprise and Town Mouse, Country Mouse and doing some more writing.  After listening to Hedgie's Surprise, the students wrote about a time when they were surprised, and they also practiced some opinion writing about whether it was better to live in the country or in the city after listening to Town Mouse, Country Mouse.  As you can see, it was a busy week! :)