April 25th-29th

Claire working on her ocean layers book.

Will, Margot and Lily playing in the water tub with the sea creatures.

Ms. Alicia working on bare books with Josephine, Cole, William, Bryson and Augie!

Michael, Liam, Lauren and Landon playing "Tenzie."

Tripp and Sophie playing in the sensory tub. Right now we have sand, sand toys and shells.

Candace, Allison, Ella and Katherine LOVE dramatic play! 

Announcements:

No school: April 29th
Nursing Home Field Trip: May 3rd
Oceans Play: May 12th at 11:00 in the middle school black box

Hello!

Thematic Centers:

We are still studying the ocean and what lives in it, the layers of the ocean etc. This week we studied the coral reef and also learned about the sea turtle and the tiger shark since those two animals are our new class "pets." Yes, we have class pets now! Each child will have a turn to take home one of our stuffed sea creatures and spend one night with it. Directions will be in the sea creatures cage. Please keep the pet for ONE NIGHT.

We rotated through 3 centers this week since it is a short week!

1. Paint your play costume!
2. Review play lines.
3. Read and illustrate your Layers of the Ocean book.

**We added a second sensory tub and filled it with water and sea animals.

Math Workshop:

We went out on the playground and stretched a piece of yarn the length of a blue whale and a humpback whale. The blue whale measures 100 feet long so this yarn stretched around more than half of the playground. It is the largest creature in the sea. The humpback whale measures 50 feet and was still very large. It is neat to see how big these creatures are compared to our height.

We also played two new games this week.

1. Double compare: Each player (up to 4) gets a stack of cards with numbers. Count 123 and then flip the top two cards over. Add the two numbers together. The player with the highest sum keeps all the cards.

2. Racing Bears: 2 players are working together to collect 10 buttons. There are 4 bears at the bottom of the game board. Roll the dice and move the bear that many spaces. Each bear can move 10 spaces before landing on a button. You can also decompose the number into two desperate numbers in order to collect a button faster. Example: I roll a 6. I could move one of my bears 4 spaces so I could collect a button and since I have 2 spaces leftover to move, I would move a different bear 2 spaces. Each time someone collects a button, they shout how many more they need to get to 10.

Reader's Workshop:

This week we wrote letters to mail at the post office! We also received guided reading books. We learned about "getting our mouth ready" while reading. We look at the first letter of the unknown word and think of the sound that the letter makes. Then we read the sentence with the first letter sound that they knew and think of what the word might be. Books need to be returned Monday because we do not have school Friday.

No sight word this week! We will resume sight words next week when we have a 5 day week and we aren't writing letters. :)

Writer's Workshop:

We are working on bare books and editing our top 5 favorite books to go in our bare books.

Have a great weekend!
Mrs. Schultz

April 11th-22nd

K-5 Dance Party

Earth day fun! We learned all about soil. Who lives in the soil, erosion, why we need soil and more!

Hello families!

Thank you for your patience with everything that has been going on the last two weeks. It has been crazy! We have had an elementary school dance party, high school drama, Earth Day, the Raptor Center trip and National Poem in Your Pocket Day. We have had about half the class sleeping each day at rest time this week. Everyone is worn out from all the fun. The raptor center was a blast! We observed many different species of raptors, saw 2 owls up close, got to pet a rat named Cheddar and went on a hike where we got to see many raptors who were once hurt and have been rehabilitated. If anyone has the opportunity to go with the family, go for it! You won't regret it.

Thematic unit:

We are learning all about the ocean! The layers of the ocean, sea animals, sand, climate and the different oceans all over the world are just a few things we are studying. We have completed many centers and will continue to do so over the next few weeks!

1. Fishy Math Game: Roll two dice and add the numbers. Mark that number on your game board. The first person at your table to mark off 8 different numbers wins.
2. Sand Dough: Mix corn starch, cream of tartar, sand and warm water together to make sand dough. We learned how the animals that live on the sand are different than the animals that live in the sea.
3. Practice play lines!!
4. Use an old CD and turn it into a fish after examining real pictures of fish.
5. Create your own sea creature using the tracers we have and decorate it any way you want! Create your own sentence describing your sea creature. **Tracing, cutting and writing are skills we have been working on and this was a neat activity to see how much growth everyone has made.**
6. Learn about the puffer fish and how it scares predators away. Use "spiky" balls and roll them in paint. Roll that paint covered balls on paper to create the puffer fish! Add eyes, a mouth and fins.

**We have been keeping ocean artwork at school! So that is why there has not been as much coming home in folders.

Math Workshop:

We studied place value again as this is a very hard concept and played "listen and count." Everyone closes their eyes. Listen for the "knocking" sound on the table. Open your eyes when the knocking stops and build that number. State how many tens and how many ones are in your number.

We also started story problems this week! Example: Mrs. Schultz has 12 lollipops on her table. Ms. Alicia ate 5 of them. How many does Mrs. Schultz have left? These are difficult but we are doing both addition and subtraction story problems.

Reader's Workshop:

Last week we learned the word "said" and this week we learned the word "they." We did sight word books for both! Last week we learned about CVC words (consonant, vowel, consonant) and how to look for these while reading. Examples are: dog, cat, put, run, mat, jet. We also got our brand new leveled readers and did a lot of reading individually and as a group! Don't forget, these go home Tuesday or Wednesday and need to come back to school FRIDAY.

Writer's Workshop:

This month's theme is still "author's as mentors." We are still discussing how to use the author's that we have studied in our own writing.

Announcements:

**Please continue to practice play lines!
**We need as many helpers as we can get for the walking tour field trip next week. We walk from school to the Davidson police department, fire station and post office. We cannot do this safely unless we have help! So please sign up. :)
**We also have not had a Sci Fri volunteer in a while, so join us for that too!
**WE DO HAVE SCHOOL APRIL 28TH. This was originally a workday but we have to make it up due to the snow. We have our walking tour trip this day now!
**No school April 29th.

Happy weekend,
Mrs. Schultz

April 4th-8th

Hello and welcome back!

I sent an email yesterday asking for everyone to start reviewing play lines. If you are not able to print at home, just let me know and I would be glad to print them for you.

The Children's Theater was SO MUCH FUN! So glad we were able to go!

Thematic Centers:

We started a new unit this week and started learning some of our new ocean songs. We are studying the ocean and all the sea creatures and plants that live within it. We rotated through 4 main centers.

1. Create a glyph answering the following questions and following the directions according to your answers. If you are a girl, use the one piece bathing suit, a boy use the swing trunks. If you like swimming in the pool better, grab a snorkel mask, If you like swimming in the ocean better, grab a snorkel mask, and flippers. If you like playing with a beach ball better, grab a beach ball. If you like playing with a sand shovel and bucket, grab those two items. Then glue all the pieces together!
2. Read and illustrate the "What is a Whale?" book.
3. Read Rainbow fish and create illustrations for the mini book making all different types of fish.
4. Label the parts of a fish.

Reader's Workshop:

This week we focused on how to read punctuation. We learned how to read sentences that end in periods, exclamation marks and question marks.

Writer's Workshop:

This months theme is Authors as Mentors. We looked at Eric Carle's books this week and discussed how we could use his stories to help us in our own writing pieces.

Math Workshop:

This week we learned about place value. We learned about the ones place, tens place and hundreds place. Some children even worked with numbers in the thousands.We built numbers using base ten blocks (tens rods, ones and hundreds squares) and played "I have Who Has." Example: I have 61, who has 3 tens and 6 ones? I have 36, who has 5 tens and 2 ones. This game was hard but we are going to keep practicing. We also filled out the new April calendar together. Our numbers are looking so much better!

**Each child will need to send a blank CD (that they no longer need) and a plastic water bottle (the recyclable kind, not an actual reusable water bottle) next week. We are going to be crafting CD fish with the CD's and making oceans out of the water bottles. Please send these in by Tuesday!

Thank you!
Mrs. Schultz