Weekly News (Sept. 3-6)

For a short week of school, we sure were busy...and very productive!!  Take a peek below to see what we have been learning about this week.

Math
We spent some time reviewing our shapes and focused on the square.  We completed another dinosaur shape sorting activity where our picky dinosaur would only eat squares!  The children reinforced their sorting and fine motor skills during this activity.

We also spent time this week talking about different ways we can sort objects.  We talked about the different characteristics, or attributes, we could look at to group objects together.  During an interactive whiteboard activity, the children used our "Magic Pen" to sort a collection of buttons using a variety of different attributes.  Check out our work in action below!

Sorting buttons big and small in the morning!

Sorting buttons big and small in the afternoon!

Sorting buttons by number of button holes.

Sorting buttons by size and color.

Wow!  Sorting buttons by color, shape, and number of button holes.  This one took a lot of thinking but we did it!!

We began exploring the concept of patterns this week in math as well, which is a foundational skill for many math concepts.  First we used our bodies to follow a pattern such as---clap, clap, stomp, clap, clap, stomp.  We even followed some patterns that involved humming and chirping like a chick!  At the end of the week, we worked on color patterns and talked about the different patterns we could follow such as an AB pattern, an AAB pattern, or even an ABB pattern.  Check out our color patterns below. We even painted our own dot patterns during center time!

Sound and motion patterns with the morning class. 

Sound and motion patterns with the afternoon class.

Color patterns

Jolly Phonics
Hooray!  We learned the first 3 Jolly Phonics sounds this week!

Ss as in "snake."
Aa as in "apple."
Tt as in "tennis."

The children are doing a TERRIFIC job with their Jolly Phonics notebooks, and we have a great time each day sharing some of our favorite finds!  It is great to see the children stretching out the sounds they hear.  Please remember that the children do not need to have correct spellings when labeling their pictures.  The goal is for children to write down the sounds they hear when saying the word slowly.  As we learn more sounds, the children will be able to write more.  I truly appreciate the time you are spending with your child completing their homework and reviewing our sounds!

Literacy
The students brought home two plastic baggies this week--one for sight words and the other bag for sight word books.  Please keep these bags handy and practice reading the words and books inside.  New words and books will come home each week in your child's folder for you to add to the bags.  This week's word wall words were I and can.  We also enjoyed several good read aloud stories these week!

Assessments
The students were given two quick literacy assessments as part of our AIMSweb testing this week.  The students take these assessments three times each year--fall, winter, and spring.  The information provided from these assessments along with the information I have been gathering through our Fountas and Pinnell guided reading assessments will help inform my instruction as I work to meet the individual literacy needs of each student.  I so enjoy getting to meet with the students one-on-one.  I have learned so much about them already!

Thanks for reading!