Classroom News (Oct. 22-Nov.2)

Halloween was definitely a highlight of our week! The students had a great time showing off their costumes as we paraded around the school and played several different games during our class parties. A HUGE thank you to all of the parents who helped make our parties a success!!

Click HERE to see more photos from the morning class.

Click HERE to see more photos from the afternoon class.

Math

We finished our second unit in math, which focused on building confidence with the numbers 0-10. This week we focused on comparing two sets of objects using one-to-one matching. We also practiced solving "one more" and "one less" number stories using counters and cubes and reviewed the concepts of "before" and "after" as we worked to identify numbers that come before or after a given number. We finished our week with our Chapter 2 test. 

Jolly Phonics

We have learned several more double letter sounds over the last few weeks, and the children have been doing great job thinking of examples for each of these sounds and trying to apply these sounds during writing workshop time. 

ie as in "pie"

ee as in "feet"

or as in "corn"

ng as in "sing"

oo as in "book" and "moon"

ch as in "chick"

sh as in "shoe"

Reading Workshop

During our launch unit for reading workshop, we have spent some time thinking about who we are as readers. As we read several different stories and explored different genres of books, we learned that we are all unique readers who have different interests in books! We began thinking about the types of books we like and learned that some of us like books about animals, some of us like books about outer space, while others like fairy tales and poetry. During an interactive read aloud lesson, we read But Excuse Me That is My Book by Lauren Child, which is a story about a girl named Lola who goes to the library to check out her favorite book only to find out that someone else has already checked it out. Her brother Charlie tries to help her see that there are other books at the library she might enjoy, and Lola discovers there are many other books she would like too! In your child's blue folder, you will find a survey to work on with your child so we can begin to answer the question, "Who Am I As a Reader?" Thank you so much for your help with this! The information from these surveys will be very helpful in the coming weeks as the children shop for new books for their individual book bins.

We also took a closer look at the poem The Itsy Bitsy Spider as we learned the difference between letters, words, and sentences. We also learned about spacing between words and beginning a sentence with a capital letter and ending with a period.

Writing Workshop

The children continue to gain confidence using the Jolly Phonics sounds we have learned. We practiced matching letters and sounds as students worked to label different parts of a pumpkin. We also wrote about the spooky and silly things we saw on Halloween.

LMC

The children enjoyed listening to the story a Creepy Pair of Underwear by Aaron Reynolds in the LMC this week, and they had a blast making their own pair of creepy underwear!

Centers

The students have been doing a great job working in centers over the past couple of weeks while I have been meeting with students one-on-one for report card assessments. Our centers reinforced letter naming, name writing, story retelling, math, and fine motor skills. Take a peek at us in action below!

Matching and tracing letters

Name writing practice

Listening to Little Boo

Adding and making pumpkins on a vine

Building upper and lowercase letters with Play-doh

All About Me
We loved learning all about Evelyn and Daniel in our morning class over the last couple of weeks. We learned that Evelyn is an avid dancer, and she loves dressing up for dance shows. She also enjoys playing with her squishy collection and her mini stuffed animals. Evelyn likes to paint and do crafts and spend time with her family!

Thank you Eveyln's mom for bringing in one of our favorite authors--
Mo Willems!!

We also loved learning all about Daniel and his favorite things. We learned that Daniel loves to listen to stories and spend time with his younger sister. We also learned that Daniel's favorite color is blue, and he enjoys playing with his car collection and magnetic tiles. Daniel also loves spending time with his family for the holidays!

Thank you to Daniel's mom for reading a sweet book about bedtime stories!

The afternoon class loved learned all about Jackson. We learned that Jackson is a huge fan of The Magic Treehouse book series, and he also enjoys classic comic books. Jackson likes to play with his car and Lego collections, and he is a fan of Star Wars. He also likes St. Patrick's Day and spending time with his family!

Always a fun read! Thank you to Jackson's mom for making us laugh with
The Book with No Pictures!

The afternoon class also loved learning all about Cole and some of his favorite things. We learned that Cole enjoys playing soccer, and he loves animals, especially dinosaurs!! Cole also enjoys playing with Legos, and he is a fan of Star Wars. He likes visiting the zoo and spending time with his family!

Could you imagine dinosaurs at school?
Thank you to Cole's mom for sharing this fun story!

Thanks for reading!

Have a great week!