October 26, 2012- Bats and Bones and Spiders, Oh my!

Halloween Party

• On Wednesday, we will be having our Halloween Party.  Please have your child bring his/her Halloween costume in a bag to school.  Please no face paint or "pretend weapons".

Highlights from the Week:

• Special Theme of the Week: Bats and Bones and Spiders, Oh my!
• Heart Word of the Week: a
• In language arts, we focused on identifying characters in books.  We also practiced asking ourselves questions while we read.  For example: I wonder why that happened?  What will happen next?  How will the book end? etc.
• In writing, we practiced using the heart word "like".  We wrote stories about things that we like.
• In math, we learned about tallies.  We practiced making tally marks with Popsicle sticks.  We also played a Bingo game to practice identifying numbers and quantities (E.g. a group of 5, a group of 2, etc.)
• During out theme time, we read books about bones, bats, and spiders.  We practiced some of our language arts strategies of identifying characters and asking ourselves questions.  In addition, we made a "Web of Kindness".  We rolled a ball of yarn to someone and said something nice about that person.  By the time we were finished, we created a spider web!
• At community centers, we are making spiders out of our hand prints.  We are also making skeletons out of macaroni!  Another new center is our "Mr. Pumpkin Head" center.  Here, we are using Mr. Potato Head parts to decorate a pumpkin!

 

October 19th, 2012- Five Senses with Pumpkins!

Highlights from the week:

• Special Theme of the Week: Pumpkins
• Heart Word of the Week: like
• In language arts, we practiced making predictions.  We also talked about the beginning, middle, and end of a book.  In addition, we have been working on identifying the beginning sound of a word.
• In writing, we wrote a nonfiction story about the life cycle of a pumpkin.
• In math, we were introduced to patterns and naming those patterns.  In addition, we worked on counting, instant recognition of quantities to 5, and matching a set of objects to the number.
• In science, we have done a variety of activities.  We explored the inside and outside of a pumpkin using our senses.  We used each of our senses and then came up with words to describe what we were noticing.  We even baked our pumpkins in a crock pot and tasted it!  This week, we also started an experiment where we have put dirt inside a pumpkin that still has seeds and pulp.  We are going to see if we can get the seeds to grow.
• During community centers, we continued with our harvest center.  We are getting really good at sorting our produce, giving it a price, and "selling" it to others.
• We had a great field trip to Jollay Orchards.  It was a great way for us to end our unit on pumpkins! 

October 12, 2012- Force and Motion with Pumpkins

 

Highlights from our week:

• Special Theme of the Week: Pumpkins
• Heart Word of the Week: the
• In language arts, we practiced recognizing the setting of a story (where the story takes place).  We also began talking about beginning of a story, middle of a story, and end of a story.  With a nonfiction story, we talked about how pictures help provide us with information that the words might not tell us.
• In writing, we practiced coming up with descriptive words in order to describe a pumpkin.
• In math, we have been working on using descriptive words like: all, none, most, least, many, less, equal, etc.
• In science, we were introduced to Force and Motion.  We used pumpkins to experiment with pushing and pulling.  We also used pumpkins to describe location of an object and direction of movement. 
• During Community Centers, we have been practicing sharing and working together as a team.  At our science center, we used cubes to measure how tall our pumpkins are.  We also used string to measure how far around a pumpkin is.  At our Harvest Center, we have created and added signs to name the various items we have.  We have also created signs with the price of the produce.
• Firefighters visited our school this week to talk about fire safety.  They also encouraged families to check the batteries in smoke detectors and carbon monoxide detectors.  In addition, they recommended that all families talk about an escape plan in case of a fire and a meeting spot outside the house.

October 5, 2012 - Pumpkin Fun!

Highlights from the week:

• Special theme of the week: Pumpkins
• Heart word of the week: am
• In language arts, we read a book called, Whose Baby Am I?  With this book, we practiced finding our heart word "am", making predictions on what will happen next, and figuring out the pattern in the story.
• In math, we were introduced to a new math center called, Which Bug Will Win.  At this math center, we are practicing counting, comparing quantities, and exploring probability.
• In writing, we continued to practice writing stories in our journals.  We are working on using heart words in our stories.
• In science, we have begun to learn about pumpkins.  We created a chart called a KWL chart.  We recorded what we already know about pumpkins...that's the K part (what we KNOW).  Then we came up with some things we want to know...that's the W part (what we WANT to know.  As we learn some things about pumpkins, we record it on the L part (what we LEARNED).
• The garden teacher took us out to the garden this week and let us explore some of the things it has to offer!
• During community centers, we opened our Harvest Center.  Here we are practicing buying, selling, and sorting produce.  We are also learning about harvesting and farmer's markets.  At our science center, we are exploring gourds, sorting gourds, measuring gourds, and weighing gourds.  At our art center, we are finger painting a pumpkin orange, but only using the colors red and yellow. 

Sept. 27th, 2012- Apple Time

Dramatic Play

Next week, our dramatic play (pretend kitchen area) will change into a harvest center/farmers market.  We could use some items for this center.  A note was in your child's folder with details about some things we need.

Highlights from the Week

• In language arts, we focused on a story called, Jazz Baby.  With this story we practiced using the pictures to help us answer questions.
• In math, we continued sorting shapes according to their attribute (number of sides, number of corners, etc.)  We also began talking about patterns by making a paper quilt.
• In writing, we worked on adding details to our pictures (suns, clouds, coloring things in, etc.)  We also practiced using our heart words-I, can, we.
• During our theme time, we read some apple books and did some apple books.  One of our favorite books was 10 Apples Up on Top by Dr. Seuss.  After reading the story, we glued our picture on a piece of paper and then glued apples on top of our head.
• At community centers, we added a new science center.  This week at the science center, we examined apples, sorted apples, compared sizes, and weighed them.  At the art center, we turned a paper plate into an apple by finger painting.  In our dramatic play area, we added some special papers so we could practice writing a To Do list and doing "chores" off a list.

September 21, 2012 - Scarecrows

• Needed:
• 6-7 apples vatiety of sizes, shapes, and colors (By Monday September 24th)
• 4 red apples cut into 8ths (By Friday September 28th)
• 4 green apples cut into 8ths (By Friday September 28th)
• 4 yellow apples cut into 8ths (By Friday September 28th)

If you can donate any apples, please post a comment on the blog or send in a note.  Thank you!

• "Be Your Own Hero"- You may be hearing your child talk about Heroes and Hero Behavior.  We have a school-wide theme called, "Be Your Own Hero".  Throughout the year teachers and students will catch others being "heroes" and exhibiting hero behavior.  Some of those hero behaviors include: following directions, helping others, playing fair, etc.  When a student is caught being a hero, they receive a hero slip and it is put in a box.  At the end of the month, hero slips will be taken home.  The student from our class who receives the most hero slips for the month will be the "Hero of the Month" and he/she will have lunch with Mrs. White! 

Here are some highlights from the week:

• In language arts, we read a book called, Hands Can.  With this book we worked on "Concepts of Print".  This includes talking about where the title and author are, where to start reading, what direction to go when you are reading, etc.  We also worked on finding our heart word, "can".
• In writing, we practiced adding details to our pictures (grass, trees, sun, clouds, etc.).  I also practiced writing our heart words "I" and "can".
• In math, we sorted shapes by many of their attributes.  (Number of sides, number of corners, round/straight sides)
• During our theme time, we read many scarecrow books and did some scarecrow activities.  One of our favorites was making a scarecrow out of shapes.
• During community centers, we focused on sharing and using kind words while we play.  The art center also opened up this week and we used water color to paint a scarecrow.