November 30th, 2012 - Missing Gingerbread Man

 

Highlights from the Week:

• Special Theme of the Week: Gingerbread
• Heart Word of the Week: have
• In language arts, we practiced recognizing the story structure.  In addition, we have been working on isolating the various sounds within a word.
• In writing, we worked on adding descriptive words to our writing.
• In math, we made a paper quilt and explored the various patterns we saw in the quilt.
• During our theme time, we have been reading various versions of the gingerbread man.  We have been comparing the characters in each of these stories.
• Our community centers have a variety of gingerbread themed centers.  At our dramatic play, we are retelling the story of the gingerbread man.  At our math center, we are measuring how long things are using a gingerbread ruler.  The ruler tells us how many gingerbread men long things are.  At our art center, we are using a variety of materials to decorate a gingerbread man.
• We are also really excited about our "construction project".  We decided we wanted to build a gingerbread house in our classroom, so we are going through a similar process of a real construction worker.  We started  by brainstorming where we wanted the house in our classroom.  We talked about it with our friends and then presented it to the class.  We voted and decided we wanted the house to be at the entrance of our classroom so we could pretend our whole classroom was a gingerbread house.  We then talked about how we needed to design the house before we built it.  We drew pictures of what we wanted the house to look like and practiced our writing skills by making labels.  Next, we voted on what design we wanted to do.  Then, we drew the doors and the windows on our house and Mrs. Matulis cut it out.  We are looking forward to painting our house and designing what types of decorations we would like.

The Making of our Gingerbread Man

 

Santa dropped off some "magic" gingerbread dough



 

Preparing the Gingerbread Man

 

Decorating the Gingerbread Man

 

 

 

Delivering the Gingerbread Man

 

When we went back to get him, he was gone!

We searched around the school and found shadows and clues.

We ended back in our classroom and the Gingerbread Man had left us some cookies.  We each took one bite of the cookie and then graphed which part of the body we ate first.  More people took a bite out of the leg first. 

 

 

November 16th, 2012- Happy Thanksgiving!

Next week there will be no news letter due to the short week.

Conferences:
Thank you all for attending Parent/Teacher Conferences!  It was so nice to be able to sit down and talk with you all.  If you forgot to ask me something or if you thought of a question afterward, feel free to call, send a note, or an email!

Needed:
Please let me know if you could make some peppermint play-doh for the class!  Here is a link to a recipe!

http://www.kinderthemes.com/peppermintplaydough.html

Highlights from the Week:

• Special Theme of the Week: Thanksgiving
• Heart Word of the Week: to
• In language arts, we worked on making predictions while we read.  We then checked and talked about if our predictions were right or wrong.  We also figured out the structure of our story was a pattern.  Most of the words repeated over and over again.
• In writing, we practiced writing our heart words "go" and "to".
• In math, we were introduced to a new center called, Count and Compare Butterflies.  With this center, we are practicing counting and comparing quantities.
• In social studies, we have been learning about Pilgrims, Native Americans, and the first Thanksgiving.
• During community centers, we have been Thanksgiving themed centers.  At our art center, we are making a hand print turkey.  At our science center, we are exploring dry corn.  At our fine motor center, we are making a Native American out of shapes.  At our dramatic play center, we are acting out Pilgrims, Native Americans, and the first Thanksgiving.

November 9th, 2012- Signs of Fall

Highlights from the Week:

• Special Theme of the Week: Signs of Fall/Leaves
• Heart word of the Week: go
• In language arts, we practiced the strategies of identifying characters and asking ourselves questions while we read.
• In writing, we wrote about an American Flag on election day.  We also used our creativity and turned a leaf into something different (E.g. car, boat, etc.).  We then wrote about what we changed it in to.  
• In math, we were introduced to a couple new math centers that deal with manipulating shapes in order to explore and discover how to manipulate shapes and make them fit together.
• In social studies, we talked about the election on Tuesday.  We also decided to come up with a class "stuffed animal" president.  To do this, each animal told the class what he/she would do if he/she was president.  Chester the Racoon said that he would give them a movie and let them eat popcorn.  Jazzy the Giraffe said that she would give extra recess and a popsicle if they voted for her.  Then, we worked in groups of two to make a campaign poster for our candidates.  We then stood in front of the class and tried to convince our classmates to vote for a particular stuffed animal.  Next we voted and tallied the votes on the smartboard.  Jazzy the Giraffe won.
• In science, we learned about fall and leaves.  We used our senses to explore how the seasons are changing.
• Some highlights from community centers include: at our science center, we are exploring leaves.  We are measuring how big they are and identifying parts.  At our dramatic play, we still have our puppet theater and have really been expanding our creativity.  We have been making signs and programs.  We have also been making things like "lights" that we feel we need to put on a show. 

November 1st, 2012- Short Week

Highlights from the Week:

• Special Theme of the Week: Bats and Bones and Spiders, Oh my!
• Heart Word of the Week: see
• In language arts, we continued to practice asking our self questions while we read.  We also worked on comparing items by figuring out how they are the same and how they are different.
• In writing, we practiced using heart words by writing about what we were going to be for Halloween.  We also wrote a story about our favorite candy.  
• In math, we were introduced to a new center that we play with a partner.  This new center helps us practice counting, recognizing numbers, and comparing quantities.
• On Tuesday, we had a mock election.  We learned about voting and the presidential candidates.
• During community centers, we made Ooblick for our science center.  We are having a ton of fun discovering and making observations with it.  It is made from cornstarch and water!  We are also practicing our language skills in dramatic play, which has turned into a puppet theater!