Thank you! Thank you! Thank you!
I was blown away by all of the thoughtful cards, gifts, and gestures during Teacher Appreciation Week. Thank you all for thinking of me and brightening my week!
Math
During math time we have been learning how to count forward and back from a given number. We have also been learning our addition math facts and recording our thinking using a number sentence. We have also been working to master our addition math facts with sums up to 5.
 |
| Comparing numbers |
 |
| Number pairs that make 10 |
 |
| Number pairs that make 10 |
 |
| Recording our thinking using a "number bond" |
 |
| Writing an addition number sentence to match our picture |
Reading Workshop
The class has been loving our nonfiction reading workshop unit! We have been using a variety of mentor texts to learn about the different features nonfiction authors use to help us learn about a topic. We used the book How Bees Make Honey to see how authors use different nonfiction text features to organize information and help us understand what is important, and then we searched for some of these features in our own books.
 |
| Searching for nonfiction text features |
 |
| Sharing our examples of nonfiction text features |
 |
| Sharing examples of nonfiction text features |
 |
| Sharing our examples of nonfiction text features |
 |
| Sharing our examples of nonfiction text features |
 |
| Sorting our books into piles of fiction and nonfiction |
 |
| Sorting our books into piles of fiction and nonfiction |
 |
| Picking nonfiction books for our book bins |
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 photos and words work together to teach us new information.
We learned about the genre of biography as well while reading 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.
We also read the book Healthy Habits and learned how to identify key details that support the big idea of the text. While listening to the book, the students acted like detectives and used good thinking skills as they worked to figure out how all the facts fit together to support the big idea--keeping our bodies healthy everyday. After examining the table of contents, reading the headings, and thinking about the big idea, we were able to identify the following habits we should do everyday to stay healthy:
Eat good foods like fruit, eggs, and nuts
Drink plenty of milk and water
Clean and protect our skin
Brush and floss our teeth
Play hard for exercise
Get lots of sleep
Writing Workshop
Our weekend writing routine has been a great opportunity for the students not only to practice their writing skills, but it has also been a great opportunity for them to talk to their friends and me about their weekend adventures! It is exciting to see them gaining more confidence in themselves as writers each week! They continue to work hard to match up letters with the sounds they hear, and they are working to include the following elements in their writing:
- Capital letter at the beginning of each sentence
- Spaces between words
- Lowercase letters throughout each sentence
- Period at the end of each sentence
Take a peek at some of our other recent writing pieces below as well.
 |
| Favorite Season Writing |
 |
| Favorite Season Writing |
 |
| Writing about a person you know |
 |
| Writing about a person you know |
 |
| Ways we can help the Earth |
 |
| A poem to show how thankful we are for Mrs. Beane |
We began our final science unit of the year that will focus on how animals, plants, and people use resources from their environment to survive. We began our unit by listening to several short texts about different animals, like the one pictured below, and then we discussed what information we knew about animals. We recorded our thoughts and came up with the following definition for an animal.
An animal is a creature that can move and get what it needs from where it lives like water, food, air, and shelter. The students also had time to select an animal they would like to research throughout our unit. They are super excited to begin their research!
LMC
Take a peek below to see what we have been learning in the LMC.
 |
| Scanning QR codes to listen to poetry |
 |
| Listening to poetry |
 |
| Listening to poetry |
 |
| Listening to poetry |
 |
| Listening to poetry |
 |
| Sorting books into fiction and nonfiction |
Kindergarten Musical
I loved watching the children perform their songs during their musical last week. They did such an amazing job! Here is the link I shared last week with photos and videos from the show. Enjoy!
Assessments
I have been working with students one-on-one to gather some assessment information for report cards and to do one more guided reading assessment before the end of the school year. It is amazing to see how much progress the students have made.
Miss Weber
The afternoon class said good-bye to Miss Weber this week, our high school intern from Prospect.
