February 23, 2012

• In language arts, we continued to practice summarizing after reading a story.  We also continued to work on identifying the main idea of a story and all the details that go along with that main idea.
• In math, we continued to create and solve sea creature story problems.  With these story problems, we are working on beginning addition and subtraction skills.
• In writing, we wrote an article for our city newspaper.
• In social studies, we continued to develop our city.  This week, we created roads and road signs.  We also began talking about maps for our city.
• During community centers, we have continued expanding our creativity while we work in our city.  We added the "White House" to our city because we thought we needed a president.  We have also added cars and a car dealership to our city so we can drive on the roads and follow some of the signs we have created.  Before we could drive cars around our city, we had to take a drivers test to earn our driver's licence.
• Heart Word of the Week: this
• Special Theme of the Week: Neighborhood

February 17, 2012

• In language arts, we practiced the strategy of summarizing and identifying the main idea and details of a story.  We also continued to practice with recognizing beginning sounds and ending sounds.
• In writing, we drew a picture of what we wanted to be when we grow up.  We then wrote a speech bubble telling what we want to be.
• In math, we continued with sea creature story problems.  This week, we individually solved some sea creature story problems on white boards.  We also began creating our own story problems.  On Wednesday, we celebrated the 100th day of school.   We had fun counting to 100 several different ways.  We also counted out 100 pieces of snack.
• In social studies, we began our unit on neighborhoods.  We decided to turn our classroom into a city.  We brainstormed different businesses we needed in our city and what people might do at those businesses.  We also learned about the difference between needs and wants.
• During community centers, we "opened" many of the businesses we brainstormed.  We have a construction zone, Pizza Hut, a vet, a post office, a school, an art museum, a library, a bakery, a fire station, and a police station.  We are learning about some of the different things we can do at these jobs, as well as developing our social skills.  We are also working on some literacy skills by writing down orders, writing down why an animal was visiting the vet, giving tickets for students "caught being good", etc.  We are also practicing some math skills by exchanging money in the city.
• Heart word of the week: you
• Special theme of the week: "Neighborhoods"

Febrary 10th, 2011

• In language arts, we once again practiced the strategy of recognizing story structure.  With our focus book, we decided the story structure was beginning, middle, and end.  We also came up with rhyming words in the -ed family and the -ap family.  While using the Smartboard, we practiced recognizing beginning sounds.
• In writing, we wrote about ways to keep our teeth healthy.
• In math, we acted out and solved sea creature story problems.
• In science, we learned about ways to keep our teeth healthy.  We also learned about some healthy and unhealthy foods for our teeth.
• In our community centers, our construction zone turned into a dentist office.  We built dentist chairs with the bricks.  We then used puppets and pretend dentist tools to act out going to the dentist office.  In our science center, we had hard boiled eggs and saw what happened if we drank too much kool-aid or pop.
• Heart word of the week: for
• Theme: Dental Health

Sorting foods that are healthy for our teeth and unhealthy for our teeth

 Our dramatic play turned into a bakery this week

 Exploring eggs to see what happens if we drink too much pop or kool-aid

 Dentist office

 Graphing our favorite sea creatures

Hibernation Homes

February 3, 2011

• In math, we learned a new center called, "Beat you to 15 cents".  At this center we are learning that you can trade 5 pennies for 1 nickle.  We are also practicing with recognizing, ordering, writing, and comparing numbers in the teens.
• In language arts we practiced the strategy of recognizing story structure.  In the story we read this week, we decided the structure of the story was an ABC book.  We also practiced classifying and categorizing.
• In writing, we are working on adding more specific details.  For example, instead of saying, "We can play", we are working on writing, "We can slide down a slide".
• In science, we finished up our unit on winter.  This week, we focused on ice and what animals do in the winter.  To learn about ice, we read a book, explored ice, and did an experiment to see how to melt ice the fastest.  We discovered that hot water was faster than the heater, lamp, and our hands.  We also learned that in the winter, some animals hibernate, some animals migrate, and some animals stay active.
• We added a couple new centers to our community centers that were based off of what animals do in the winter.  With wooden blocks and small beanie baby animals, we built hibernation homes.  We also had a center where we drew on a map a path of a bird flying south.  We then measured how many cubes long that journey was.
• Heart word of the week: "are"
• Special theme of the week: "winter"
• Report cards were sent home on Thursday.
• The school is having a contest where they are collecting box tops.  Continue to send those in!
• We have started a new traffic light system.  A note was put in your child's folder on Wednesday explaining how they work.  

Smart Board rhyming

Measuring how many cubes long the bird's journey south was
 
Building a hibernation home

Animal sorting

 Melting ice experiment

 Melting ice experiment

 Exploring ice