Weekly News (May 5-9)

All About Me

The morning class loved Nell's Me Box and learning about all of her favorite things. We learned that Nell loves Hello Kitty and My Little Pony. She is is a big fan of Despicable Me, and she enjoys swimming. She loves spending time with her family and she is very creative!

Our afternoon class welcomed a new student this week.
We are SO happy to have you in our class Paige!

Math

This week we played a game called "Number Gymnastics" that helped the children develop their mental math skills and strengthen their number sense. For example, I would ask a series of questions such as:

What number has a 3 as the first digit and a 1 as the second digit?--31

What number do you get if you flip these two digits around?--13

What number comes after 13?--14

What number do you get if you reverse those two digits?--41

It's another great game to play at home or in the car! This  children also learned how to apply basic addition and subtraction rules this week as they learning how to use "In and Out Machines." (see sample below) This type of exercise helps children see the relationship between adding and subtraction.

This is a sample of an "In and Out Machine." Our addition problems were more simple than this, but it gives you an idea of how this function machine works. You will be seeing a lot of these in first grade and beyond!

Literacy

We learned two new sight words this week--my and with--and the children also brought home a new sight word book. This week our theme of amazing creatures continued as we ventured into the land of dinosaurs. The children spent much of their week working on a special writing project for Mother's Day. I hope you enjoyed their gift--such sweet and thoughtful ideas! I also met with students in their guided reading groups this week. Next week I will begin doing some end of year assessments with the students one-on-one. It's amazing to think about how far they have come since August! I am so proud of these kiddos!

Music Program

Thank you all so much for coming out Friday to see our "Spring Sing!" The children did such a lovely job, and it was great seeing all of you. Here is a group photo from the show. What a wonderful group of children!