Saturday, October 19, 2013

Weekly News (Oct. 16-18)

For a short week, we sure were busy!

Math
This week the children practiced writing the number 10.  Here is the rhyme we used to help us remember the strokes:

Tall straight, circle then,
That's the way to make a 10!

We also reviewed the rhymes for writing the numbers 1-9.  The children completed a shape sorting activity and did some graphing as well.  Using a collection of red, yellow, orange, and brown leaves, the children counted the number of each color and graphed the results.  They did an excellent job with this activity!

Jolly Phonics
With our three day week, we spent time reviewing all of the Jolly Phonics sounds we have learned so far, and we also watched one of our Jolly Phonics videos.  The video reviewed the sounds for Book #3 (g, o, u, l, f, b) and showed students how to blend sounds to read words.  I loved watching the children as they practiced some blending while watching the video.  They are so eager to learn how to read!

Next week we will begin learning the sounds from Book #4.  The students will begin learning some of the long vowel sounds like the /ai/ in "rain" or "train."  When working on their Jolly Phonics homework, the students will be looking for pictures or drawing pictures with the long vowel sound in the middle of words.

Literacy
The children enjoyed several stories about leaves this week including: Autumn Leaves, Leaf Jumpers, and The Little Yellow Leaf.  We did a second "close reading" of the book The Little Yellow Leaf and talked about the different clues in the story that helped us understand that the story took place in the fall.  We also took a closer look at some of the author's words and discussed what some of the words might mean.  In the picture below, we were trying to understand the meaning of the word "bare."




We also worked in Writer's Workshop this week and wrote about some of the fun things we did over the long weekend.  It sounded like everyone enjoyed the nice long Columbus Day weekend!  We learned how to write the letter Ee as well and read a Time for Kids magazine about being a good friend.

Science
We worked as scientists this week as we explored many of the leaves that the students brought in.  The students each chose one leaf to study.  Using their leaf, they drew a picture of the leaf in their science journal and labeled the color of the leaf.  They covered the leaf with pennies and recorded the number of pennies it took to cover the surface of the leaf.  They placed their leaf in a pan of water and counted the number of pennies it took to sink the leaf.  They also compared the different sizes of all the leaves and recorded the size of their leaf--small, medium, or large.  Take a peek at our scientists in action below!









































Have a great weekend!

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