Weekly News (Feb. 6-10)

Take a peek below to see what we have been learning this week!

All About Me
This week we loved learning all about Katie. We learned that Katie loves to watch movies, especially her favorite movie--Frozen! She also loves to build Lego Friends and play with her Playmobil sets. She enjoys coloring and reading too. Katie also loves to play soccer and spend time with her family!

A big thank you to Katie's Dad for coming in to read today.
My New Teacher and Me!--What a fun book!

Math
This week in math we took a closer look at two-dimensional shapes as we identified some of the similarities and differences between squares, rectangles, triangles, and circles. We also introduced the terms: corner, side, and angle. We even used our bodies to make some 2-D shapes!

Triangle

Square

Rectangle

Trapezoid

Circle

We practiced our counting patterns too by playing a game called "Interrupted Counts" where students had to start counting from a given number and then stop when they were interrupted. Then they had to continue the count from a different number.

We practiced writing our numbers as well by playing a round of "Roll and Record" with two dice. This was a great way for students to practice finding sums and recording their rolls on a graph. Students used a variety of strategies to find their sums including: counting the dots, counting on, and pulling the combinations from memory. Students quickly realized why 0 and 1 were not represented on their graphs, and after recording several of their sums, many children realized that rolling a 6, 7, or 8 was more likely than rolling a 2 or a 12 because there are several ways to make a sum of 6, 7, or 8 and only one way to get a 2 or a 12!

Roll and Record

Literacy

Reading Workshop

This week during reading workshop, we used the book How Bees Make Honey to learn about nonfiction text features. We learned that readers read nonfiction text differently than fiction, and we also learned how authors of nonfiction texts use a variety of text features to organize information and help us understand what is important. After learning about these text features, the students selected their own nonfiction book and found two features to share with the class. They did an amazing job!

We also took a closer look at one of our nonfiction text features--photographs. We learned that nonfiction authors use photographs to show us how things look in our real lives and the details in photos help us understand the information in the text. We also learned that the photos and the words work together to teach us new information.

We learned about the genre of biography this week as well as we read Me...Jane by Patrick McDonnell. As we read McDonnell's beautifully written and illustrated book about the young life of Jane Goodall, we learned that a biography is a nonfiction book written about the life of someone else.

Writing Workshop

We will be switching gears in the next few weeks with our writing as we work to tie our writing into our nonfiction reading unit. Students will be learning how to write and record information they are learning about real topics.

LMC
The class had some time this week to explore some of the math games we have been playing on the Everyday Math website. New login cards were sent home this week so you can access these games at home too. If you're having trouble logging on, you might want to try a different browser. We have had the best luck with Safari and Firefox!

Getting Ready for Valentine's Day

The class had a great time decorating bags for our upcoming Valentine's Day Party. They are looking forward to an exciting week!

Have a great weekend!

Thanks for reading!