Hello everyone!
Buddies, Earth Day, saving the rain forest, oh my! It was a busy and fun week. Here’s the scoop!
Literacy:
This week we practiced identifying facts and opinion statements about space… each child got to “fly” the statement cards to either “Planet Fact” or “Planet Opinion.” The kids are doing great recognizing that facts are concrete “yes or no” type things, that we can check to verify, and that opinions are something that comes from inside a person, how he or she thinks or feels about something. This is not only an important literacy concept, but also helps our little people when negotiating conflict… The statement “I don’t like Pokemon” won’t feel like a personal attack to the friend who DOES like Pokemon, if that child can recognize that the statement is just the other student’s opinion and thus not a judgment that effects anyone else.
Here’s the run-down on the type of thing we’ve been doing in Literacy Workstations recently:
· Practicing phonics, fluency, and comprehension at the level of each child (this includes the Owl at Home reader’s notebook that some of the students have been working on)
· Sorting and matching planet and space cards (and 3D planets!), practicing space vocabulary and strengthening visual discrimination skills
· “Pinning” a sun catcher in the shape of a space shuttle (fine motor practice, strengthening the muscles in the hand needed to sustain the pincer grip while writing)
· A space themed game to practice reading words with beginning and ending blends (like “glad” and “belt”) OR a game reading and identifying statements of fact and opinion
· At Mrs. K’s table, the students are either using huge dice to “build” words containing blends, rolling the beginning, middle, and ending sounds, and then identifying whether the word created is real or nonsense, OR building vocabulary with a space themed activity that teaches the students about “shades of meaning”… ie, that “cool,” “cold,” and “freezing” all indicate the same thing, but at various levels of intensity.
· A fun “bug” themed sight word slap game…. One child will call out a bug-shaped sight word visible to them on the floor, and as quickly as possible the other child will slap it with a fly swatter. This game not only practices sight words for the students that need it, but also visual discrimination, visual and spatial processing, and fluency.
· Using magnets to build words with blends OR words with long vowels.
· Listening to an audiobook about space and creating a “beginning, middle, end” response page.
· Using the computer to practice literacy skills through games, while also practicing mouse manipulation and how to navigate windows independently.
· Free writing – since we are in between units of Writer’s Workshop, the students have had the opportunity to do free writing… we are not surprised that we have seen a lot of stories about going to the moon, interplanetary travel, and our favorite alien Fourhead lately! ;)
Science:
This week we learned more cool facts about the planets…. Such as… did you know Saturn’s rings consist of ice, dust, and rocks? The kids wanted to know if a person could walk on them, and after we did some research to find out what they were made of we all agreed that wouldn’t work. Did you know that the gas giants consist of layers of gas, then layers of liquid, and then a molten core? We also learned about the future fate of the sun, since one of the students had gotten the idea that it would turn into a black hole… our sun is actually not a dense enough star to become a black hole, and will become instead a planetary nebula.
Math:
Another varied week in Math!
This week we have been comparing coins and adding them up by counting money. We started by counting pennies and now we are including all the coins we have covered, remembering to write the cents symbol when we record how many coins we have altogether. We get to use the coins on a daily basis in our Imagination Moon Store too!
We have also been learning that every number can be represented in different ways. For example a 5 can be 1+4=5, a set of tally marks or a picture of 5 apples. We can also write the number in word form - five! We can then put all these representations together to form a name collection.
We ended the week by using a large number line to perform addition and subtraction in response to number sentences. With every number sentence the starting point was the first number and the steps/ jumps taken were equal to the second number. When performing addition we step forward and when performing subtraction we step backward.
Seeing as it’s our last week covering Space we tried to make a few of our stations space related!
Our Math Stations this week included:
In other news:
We had a particularly great time with our Big Buddies on Wednesday! Since it was our last Buddies meeting of the year, we celebrated by showing off our burgeoning reading skills and then sharing a session of Creative Explorations… a blast from the past for the Big Buddies! It was so fun seeing the Little Buddies’ confidence as they read to the Big Buddies, and also very fun to see the Big Buddies joining in pretend play, Legos, art, etc, with the little guys. It was a joyful conclusion to our year together!
Earth Day was EXTRA cool this year, thanks to Mirah’s mom Claire! Claire not only brought us the supplies for “dirt pudding” (chocolate pudding, whipped cream, gummy worms, and ice cream cones to hold the whole shebang!), and supervised the creation of our special treat, but also a brought us seeds, planting cups, and potting soil for a real-dirt project too! So much fun!
Our students have been SO enthusiastic about collecting money to help save the rainforest, and we love seeing their generous hearts! After we discussed the Earth’s Birthday project in class, students immediately (and completely without prompting!) began discussing bringing money from their piggy banks, wiggling teeth extra hard to “cash in” with the tooth fairy, and doing chores around the house to earn money. Danielle actually had brought a dollar that day, to show off her recent tooth fairy “loot” to her friends, and immediately brought it out to donate to the rainforest. Lily F did the same with an “emergency dollar” she had been carrying around in her backpack. The rest of the class has enthusiastically followed suit in the days since as well! Such sweet and generous spirits, and such inspiring passion for saving one of Earths’ natural treasures! We have been discussing the words “generous” and “generosity” a lot in class this week, acknowledging that a true generous gift is something you probably wanted to keep for yourself, but that you gave to someone else instead because it was important to you to help, or because you knew it was the right thing to do. Watching kids donate their tooth fairy money to help save the rain forest is guaranteed to make Ms. Louderback teary!
We will continue to collect coins through this coming week, and will count them as a class on Friday to determine how much rainforest we will be able to save…. one penny protects a square yard, and $50 saves an acre!
Be sure to check out the "Specialist Spotlight" tab of our Weebly site, to read all about our study of Spanish with Senora Diaz-Williamson!
Big thanks to our Mystery Reader this week, Hunter’s mom Lexi! She read us a fun Elephant and Piggy book, and a book about outer space too! And huge thanks to Mirah’s mom Claire for providing the fun Earth Day activities! And a big thank you to all of you for helping to facilitate our coin collecting to save the rainforest… we appreciate your help in teaching the students about generosity and the importance of protecting our planet! The children are taking those lessons to heart in such sweet and meaningful ways. :)
Buddies, Earth Day, saving the rain forest, oh my! It was a busy and fun week. Here’s the scoop!
Literacy:
This week we practiced identifying facts and opinion statements about space… each child got to “fly” the statement cards to either “Planet Fact” or “Planet Opinion.” The kids are doing great recognizing that facts are concrete “yes or no” type things, that we can check to verify, and that opinions are something that comes from inside a person, how he or she thinks or feels about something. This is not only an important literacy concept, but also helps our little people when negotiating conflict… The statement “I don’t like Pokemon” won’t feel like a personal attack to the friend who DOES like Pokemon, if that child can recognize that the statement is just the other student’s opinion and thus not a judgment that effects anyone else.
Here’s the run-down on the type of thing we’ve been doing in Literacy Workstations recently:
· Practicing phonics, fluency, and comprehension at the level of each child (this includes the Owl at Home reader’s notebook that some of the students have been working on)
· Sorting and matching planet and space cards (and 3D planets!), practicing space vocabulary and strengthening visual discrimination skills
· “Pinning” a sun catcher in the shape of a space shuttle (fine motor practice, strengthening the muscles in the hand needed to sustain the pincer grip while writing)
· A space themed game to practice reading words with beginning and ending blends (like “glad” and “belt”) OR a game reading and identifying statements of fact and opinion
· At Mrs. K’s table, the students are either using huge dice to “build” words containing blends, rolling the beginning, middle, and ending sounds, and then identifying whether the word created is real or nonsense, OR building vocabulary with a space themed activity that teaches the students about “shades of meaning”… ie, that “cool,” “cold,” and “freezing” all indicate the same thing, but at various levels of intensity.
· A fun “bug” themed sight word slap game…. One child will call out a bug-shaped sight word visible to them on the floor, and as quickly as possible the other child will slap it with a fly swatter. This game not only practices sight words for the students that need it, but also visual discrimination, visual and spatial processing, and fluency.
· Using magnets to build words with blends OR words with long vowels.
· Listening to an audiobook about space and creating a “beginning, middle, end” response page.
· Using the computer to practice literacy skills through games, while also practicing mouse manipulation and how to navigate windows independently.
· Free writing – since we are in between units of Writer’s Workshop, the students have had the opportunity to do free writing… we are not surprised that we have seen a lot of stories about going to the moon, interplanetary travel, and our favorite alien Fourhead lately! ;)
Science:
This week we learned more cool facts about the planets…. Such as… did you know Saturn’s rings consist of ice, dust, and rocks? The kids wanted to know if a person could walk on them, and after we did some research to find out what they were made of we all agreed that wouldn’t work. Did you know that the gas giants consist of layers of gas, then layers of liquid, and then a molten core? We also learned about the future fate of the sun, since one of the students had gotten the idea that it would turn into a black hole… our sun is actually not a dense enough star to become a black hole, and will become instead a planetary nebula.
Math:
Another varied week in Math!
This week we have been comparing coins and adding them up by counting money. We started by counting pennies and now we are including all the coins we have covered, remembering to write the cents symbol when we record how many coins we have altogether. We get to use the coins on a daily basis in our Imagination Moon Store too!
We have also been learning that every number can be represented in different ways. For example a 5 can be 1+4=5, a set of tally marks or a picture of 5 apples. We can also write the number in word form - five! We can then put all these representations together to form a name collection.
We ended the week by using a large number line to perform addition and subtraction in response to number sentences. With every number sentence the starting point was the first number and the steps/ jumps taken were equal to the second number. When performing addition we step forward and when performing subtraction we step backward.
Seeing as it’s our last week covering Space we tried to make a few of our stations space related!
Our Math Stations this week included:
- Making a name collection with Mrs K. - The children got to choose their own number and make a name collection for it
- Alien Count - where the children counted the amount of aliens and astronauts in a picture and then tallied and graphed the amount found.
- Time Match - where the children had to match pictures of clocks showing time to the hour and half hour to cards showing digital representations of time
- Space patterns - where the children had to spin a spinner in order to see which pattern they had to make with pictures of planets i.e, aba, abb, abc
- 3d building - where the children had cards with pictures of 3d shapes and had to build using the shapes in the cards.
- 2d symmetry - where the children used pattern blocks to make symmetrical butterflies
- Tally Space Match - where the children matched cards with numerals to cards with tallies and the number words.
- Computers - this week the children were allowed to choose a math game for themselves from the website abcya.com
In other news:
We had a particularly great time with our Big Buddies on Wednesday! Since it was our last Buddies meeting of the year, we celebrated by showing off our burgeoning reading skills and then sharing a session of Creative Explorations… a blast from the past for the Big Buddies! It was so fun seeing the Little Buddies’ confidence as they read to the Big Buddies, and also very fun to see the Big Buddies joining in pretend play, Legos, art, etc, with the little guys. It was a joyful conclusion to our year together!
Earth Day was EXTRA cool this year, thanks to Mirah’s mom Claire! Claire not only brought us the supplies for “dirt pudding” (chocolate pudding, whipped cream, gummy worms, and ice cream cones to hold the whole shebang!), and supervised the creation of our special treat, but also a brought us seeds, planting cups, and potting soil for a real-dirt project too! So much fun!
Our students have been SO enthusiastic about collecting money to help save the rainforest, and we love seeing their generous hearts! After we discussed the Earth’s Birthday project in class, students immediately (and completely without prompting!) began discussing bringing money from their piggy banks, wiggling teeth extra hard to “cash in” with the tooth fairy, and doing chores around the house to earn money. Danielle actually had brought a dollar that day, to show off her recent tooth fairy “loot” to her friends, and immediately brought it out to donate to the rainforest. Lily F did the same with an “emergency dollar” she had been carrying around in her backpack. The rest of the class has enthusiastically followed suit in the days since as well! Such sweet and generous spirits, and such inspiring passion for saving one of Earths’ natural treasures! We have been discussing the words “generous” and “generosity” a lot in class this week, acknowledging that a true generous gift is something you probably wanted to keep for yourself, but that you gave to someone else instead because it was important to you to help, or because you knew it was the right thing to do. Watching kids donate their tooth fairy money to help save the rain forest is guaranteed to make Ms. Louderback teary!
We will continue to collect coins through this coming week, and will count them as a class on Friday to determine how much rainforest we will be able to save…. one penny protects a square yard, and $50 saves an acre!
Be sure to check out the "Specialist Spotlight" tab of our Weebly site, to read all about our study of Spanish with Senora Diaz-Williamson!
Big thanks to our Mystery Reader this week, Hunter’s mom Lexi! She read us a fun Elephant and Piggy book, and a book about outer space too! And huge thanks to Mirah’s mom Claire for providing the fun Earth Day activities! And a big thank you to all of you for helping to facilitate our coin collecting to save the rainforest… we appreciate your help in teaching the students about generosity and the importance of protecting our planet! The children are taking those lessons to heart in such sweet and meaningful ways. :)