Weekly News (Jan. 30-Feb. 3)

All About Me
This week we loved learning all about Ben and some of his favorite things! We learned that Ben is a huge Cubs fan, and he is an avid movie watcher. He likes watching Disney movies, and Finding Dory is one of his favorites! Ben also likes playing with cars and building with Legos. One of his favorite Lego sets is the Disney Castle with lots of Disney characters including Mickey and Minnie! We also learned that Ben enjoys painting and doing art projects, and he loves spending time with his family!

A huge thank you to Ben's mom for coming in to read a book from the book fair--
There's a Giraffe in My Soup--and then donating it to our class!
Thank you so much! It will go great with our fiction unit!

Math
This week in math we reviewed the concept of patterns while using pattern blocks to make and extend a given pattern. We also worked to create some of our patterns too. We also revisited the concept of addition and learned more about the plus sign. We practiced counting groups of objects and joining them together to find the sum or total number of objects. We learned that when you add objects together the total gets bigger. We also practiced writing number models to match our number stories and even made a class book of number stories. Take a peek at some of our work below!

Groundhog Day
In honor of Groundhog Day and as a math extension, we made predictions about whether or not Punxsutawney Phil would see his shadow on Groundhog Day. We graphed our predictions and then watched Phil as he came out of his hole to see if he saw his shadow. Looks like there will be six more weeks of winter!!

Literacy
Reading Workshop
This week we began our third unit of our Schoolwide literacy program, which focuses on the genre of nonfiction. Throughout this unit, the students will be studying three types of nonfiction--reference, biography, and literary nonfiction. Children's natural curiosity about the world around them will prompt students to ask question and learn about a variety of topics throughout our unit.

During our first lesson, we previewed all of our mentor texts and learned that nonfiction books teach us about real topics such as: people, sports, animals, events, holidays, transportation, and many other topics. We also looked at the front and back covers of each book, some of the photographs, and previewed the table of contents to understand some of the structures and features of nonfiction.

Then we read a nonfiction book about soccer and filled out a graphic organizer to help us identify what we think we know about soccer as well as what we want to know. Then while reading the book Soccer, we were able to confirm some of our ideas and clear up some of our misconceptions. Then we recorded our new learning and added even more questions!

The children were also thrilled to pick new books for their book boxes this week!

Writing Workshop
During writing workshop this week we read the book The Snowy Day by Ezra Jack Keats to help us understand how a personal narrative tells a story about a real moment from your life. We talked about how The Snowy Day was about one fun day in the snow, not about a whole winter season. Then we read a story called The Roller Coaster, which was about a little girl's first roller coaster ride. We used a watermelon as an analogy to help students understand that good personal narratives tell about one special moment in time--like the seed of a watermelon. Then we completed a sorting activity to help us understand the difference between "watermelon" stories and "seed" stories.

Guided Reading Groups
The students continue to do a great job during guided reading and are always eager to get a new book! They also continue to do a nice job working independently while I am working with a small group. During our group time, we work on a variety of early literacy skills, which are tailored to each group's literacy needs. In addition to reading our new book, we review sight words, reinforce letter sounds and patterns, and sometimes even squeeze in a little writing! Keep up the great work K-2!

Handwriting Practice
We continue to use the Handwriting Without Tears program to help us learn the strokes for writing each letter. We recently learned our "magic C" letters (C, O, Q, and G), which all begin with a big curve. We have 5 more capital letters to learn, and then we will be moving onto lowercase!

Global Day of Play
Click HERE to see some pictures from our Global Day of Play. The class had a blast playing with a variety of toys and activities, and they had some great reflections about why it is important to play at school including:

When you play, you learn how to share.

You can make new friends when you play.

It helps you learn how to take turns.

Sometimes you work hard all day and your brain needs a break.

It's good to have fun while you are learning.

Hope everyone has a great week!

Thanks for reading!