January 11th, 2013

Highlights from the Week:

• Special Theme of the Week: Winter
• Heart Word of the Week: for
• In language arts, we are working on making inferences while we read and summarizing what happened once we are done.  We are also practicing orally breaking apart words into their individual sounds.
• In writing, we worked on adding details to our writing that answer who, when, and where.
• In math, we have started to learn about money.  We were introduced to a center that practices comparing amounts of pennies.  We are also exploring shapes during our calendar time.  We are learning how shapes fit together and how shapes can be made using different shapes.
• In science, we are beginning to learn about winter.  We are writing our own little science books.  We started by recording what we already know about winter and what we want to know.  We also recorded in our science book how we will learn about winter.  We learned that one way to learn about winter is to explore, so we explored ice.  While we explored ice we made observations, came up with ideas, and created some questions we want to investigate.  One question we came up with is how can we melt an ice cube the fastest.  We then conducted an experiment to figure out the answer to our question.
• During community centers, we have added a few winter themed activities.  At the art center, we are making and painting a snowman using marshmallows as our brushes.  We are painting "ice blocks" (brown boxes) so we can build with them next week.  Also, in dramatic play, we have opened a hot chocolate shop where we are practicing writing down orders, making orders, and exchanging money.