Hello everyone! We had such a busy fun week getting ready for Grandparents’ and Special Friends’ Day… so much rehearsing! So much CUTENESS! We hope y’all heard good things from those in attendance Thursday… we loved spending the day with so many special people! If you haven’t already, be sure to check out our Weebly for a few highlights from this week, and Shutterfly for the full 100+ photo awesomeness… good times. :)
Here is a quick run-down of our non-Grandparents’ Day time this week…
Literacy:
We learned the rule that when y is at the end of a word, it steals the sound /E/ or /I/, like in “baby” and “cry.” Our sight word for the week, going along with this rule, was “my.” Next week one of our sight words will be “any,” for the other half of the rule. Check out Shutterfly for a photo of the poster we made as a visual / illustration – the kids knew lots of words that follow this rule, and lots of names and nick-names did too!
We also did a fun lesson on magic E, wearing giant tags with letters on them to spell out CVC and then CVC-E words. We talked about how having the vowel’s buddy Magic E there at the end of the word makes the vowel “brave enough” to “say his name…” It was a great active, kinesthetic way to practice spelling and reading long vowel words, and the kids had a blast.
Science:
One of the highlights from this week was watching a couple of different videos showing astronauts explaining aspects of their lives… one, an astronaut on the International Space Station, showed us where astronauts sleep. We loved watching her float as she showed the camera her sleeping quarters… even her hair was floating! Another, an astronaut here on earth at a practice facility, explained the different parts of an astronaut’s suit. We also explored the site We Choose the Moon – an interactive experience of the first space landing, through photos, videos, and simulations. Very cool!
A second highlight was our discussion of solar eclipses, inspired by the NASA photo of the day on Tuesday… We acted out a solar eclipse to help us understand how the moon could come in between the sun and the earth, with a child acting as the sun, another as the moon, and a third as the earth. It was a bit tricky to keep all three kids properly “orbiting,” but in the end it was a super fun way for the students to see how a solar eclipse occurs.
Lastly, we had a great discussion about how astronauts want to keep exploring the galaxy, but they have certain problems that are making it hard… our class of BRILLIANT youngsters quickly figured out that astronauts who wanted to go to Mars would need more food, more oxygen, and better “motors” and equipment to get them there… not to mention “a way to get back.” We learned that rocket scientists are working on solving some of those problems even now, and saw this photo of a new kind of thruster that is currently under development. How exciting would it be if some of our students grew up to be the aerospace engineers and astronauts who solve these problems? Ms. Louderback has high hopes. ;)
Math:
A short but fun week in Math! This week we introduced the quarter and revisited the other coins we have covered so far,the penny, nickel and dime. We focused on the size and color of each coin and learnt a few Presidents’ names! Our work on odd and even came into play too as the children noted which coins were Odd and which were Even! We know how much each coin is worth and will continue to use them in different ways in our Stations.
Our work on clocks continues and the children are looooving it! We have been using clocks in our Math Stations and will continue to do so over the next few weeks. We will also be introducing half past as the children’s curiosity has been piqued and they can often be found looking at the clock in our room and asking what time it it now!
This week we learnt that symbols can be used to represent other things, including pattern. We made patterns first and Mrs K wrote out the patterns using words. However, we found that writing out clap your hands two times, followed by tap your knees three times repeatedly to show a pattern takes too long!!!! So instead we came up with symbols to represent each part of our movement pattern. The children took turns coming up with both patterns and symbols that can be used to represent them.
As we were busy rehearsing our fabulous performance for our Grandparents and Special friends we finished off last weeks Math Stations. We will be starting a new round of fun next week.
In other news:
Big thanks to our TWO Mystery Readers this week, Mason’s mom Julianne and Mirah’s mom Claire! They did an awesome job and we loved having them. Big thanks as well to Lily F’s mom Annette, who jumped in last minute as Academic Helper… she helped the kids with a board game practicing digraphs AND another game reading and identifying solutions to various problems. We really appreciated her hard work, and her flexibility!
We hope you all are having a great long weekend!
Here is a quick run-down of our non-Grandparents’ Day time this week…
Literacy:
We learned the rule that when y is at the end of a word, it steals the sound /E/ or /I/, like in “baby” and “cry.” Our sight word for the week, going along with this rule, was “my.” Next week one of our sight words will be “any,” for the other half of the rule. Check out Shutterfly for a photo of the poster we made as a visual / illustration – the kids knew lots of words that follow this rule, and lots of names and nick-names did too!
We also did a fun lesson on magic E, wearing giant tags with letters on them to spell out CVC and then CVC-E words. We talked about how having the vowel’s buddy Magic E there at the end of the word makes the vowel “brave enough” to “say his name…” It was a great active, kinesthetic way to practice spelling and reading long vowel words, and the kids had a blast.
Science:
One of the highlights from this week was watching a couple of different videos showing astronauts explaining aspects of their lives… one, an astronaut on the International Space Station, showed us where astronauts sleep. We loved watching her float as she showed the camera her sleeping quarters… even her hair was floating! Another, an astronaut here on earth at a practice facility, explained the different parts of an astronaut’s suit. We also explored the site We Choose the Moon – an interactive experience of the first space landing, through photos, videos, and simulations. Very cool!
A second highlight was our discussion of solar eclipses, inspired by the NASA photo of the day on Tuesday… We acted out a solar eclipse to help us understand how the moon could come in between the sun and the earth, with a child acting as the sun, another as the moon, and a third as the earth. It was a bit tricky to keep all three kids properly “orbiting,” but in the end it was a super fun way for the students to see how a solar eclipse occurs.
Lastly, we had a great discussion about how astronauts want to keep exploring the galaxy, but they have certain problems that are making it hard… our class of BRILLIANT youngsters quickly figured out that astronauts who wanted to go to Mars would need more food, more oxygen, and better “motors” and equipment to get them there… not to mention “a way to get back.” We learned that rocket scientists are working on solving some of those problems even now, and saw this photo of a new kind of thruster that is currently under development. How exciting would it be if some of our students grew up to be the aerospace engineers and astronauts who solve these problems? Ms. Louderback has high hopes. ;)
Math:
A short but fun week in Math! This week we introduced the quarter and revisited the other coins we have covered so far,the penny, nickel and dime. We focused on the size and color of each coin and learnt a few Presidents’ names! Our work on odd and even came into play too as the children noted which coins were Odd and which were Even! We know how much each coin is worth and will continue to use them in different ways in our Stations.
Our work on clocks continues and the children are looooving it! We have been using clocks in our Math Stations and will continue to do so over the next few weeks. We will also be introducing half past as the children’s curiosity has been piqued and they can often be found looking at the clock in our room and asking what time it it now!
This week we learnt that symbols can be used to represent other things, including pattern. We made patterns first and Mrs K wrote out the patterns using words. However, we found that writing out clap your hands two times, followed by tap your knees three times repeatedly to show a pattern takes too long!!!! So instead we came up with symbols to represent each part of our movement pattern. The children took turns coming up with both patterns and symbols that can be used to represent them.
As we were busy rehearsing our fabulous performance for our Grandparents and Special friends we finished off last weeks Math Stations. We will be starting a new round of fun next week.
In other news:
Big thanks to our TWO Mystery Readers this week, Mason’s mom Julianne and Mirah’s mom Claire! They did an awesome job and we loved having them. Big thanks as well to Lily F’s mom Annette, who jumped in last minute as Academic Helper… she helped the kids with a board game practicing digraphs AND another game reading and identifying solutions to various problems. We really appreciated her hard work, and her flexibility!
We hope you all are having a great long weekend!