December 15th-19th

Pajama day and gingerbread house decorating tomorrow!! Do not forget!

Thematic Centers:

This week we did not have a specific theme. We wrapped out gifts for our families, worked on a gingerbread house made of paper and just enjoyed the week before break! We got out some of our favorite old centers like legos, blocks, cars etc. We were able to practice our cutting skills as well!

Reader's Workshop:

This week we really worked on organizing our writing folders. We examined all our books and writing pieces. We took books home that were finished and made a pile of things that we need to finish. We also chose one book to edit with an adult. We worked on adding punctuation, making complete sentences and making sure we have capital letters and adding details where necessary. We also worked on another acrostic poem and talked about other styles of poetry (including couplets like last year at Valentine's time).

We did not do word sorts this week but we did get our leveled book! Work on that this week.

Word study words this week are:
school
street
mother
time
hand

*There are LOTS of tricky phonograms in the words this week. TH makes a different sound in mother and the CH makes a different sound in school. There were lots of questions about these phonograms this week.

Math Workshop:

We have really been working hard on subtraction. We are working on finding what strategies we are most comfortable using. We played 3 games this week. The first two games we already knew how to play. Instead of adding we subtracted. The second game was brand new. We played:

5 in a Row: Roll a number cube and a dice. Take the bigger number and subtract the smaller number. Place your counter on the the number. You need to get 5 in a row.

Roll and record:  Roll a number cube and a dice. Take the bigger number and subtract the smaller number. Record that number on your sheet. Once you fill a whole row, the game is over.

Sports Ball: Roll two cubes. You can either add or subtract those dots to determine what number you want to land on. The first person to cover 10 numbers wins the game! This works on adding, subtracting and it helps with strategizing/solving problems!

Enjoy your long break! See you in 2015!
Emily Schultz