February 13th-15th

Hello parents!

So sorry it has been so long since I posted. It has been crazy around here! Thank you for coming to read poems with us yesterday. I told Ms. Pam that Valentine's Day here at CSD is one of my favorite days. I love reading all of the poems and spreading the love. :)

We have another short week this week. Optional parent/teacher conferences and teacher work days are tomorrow and Friday. President's Day is Monday. Enjoy the long weekend!

We have gotten back into somewhat of a normal routine this week. We did not do word study words this week as it was a short week but we did start thematic centers back up and learn a couple of new math games.

Math Workshop:

Cover it! Player 1 turns over two cards. You can either subtract or add your numbers together. Once you have your answer look for the answer on the game board. Then player 2 goes. The first person to cover the most numbers wins the game.

Make 10. There are cards with 2 numbers placed on them. You make 2 rows of 5. Each player takes turns finding a match to make 10. Example the card with 3 and 0 could be matched with 4 and 3. Because 7 and 3 make 10.

*Please continue to work on your 10 frame math cards at home each week. Remember if your child recognizes the dots, the next step is to work on the addition and subtraction facts to 10. We need your help with this! These just have to be memorized by lots of practice. Our math games here reinforce math facts to 10 but we need them practiced at home too.

Reader's Workshop:

Everyone received their leveled reader to go home and work on. We also reviewed all the word study words we have learned so far. Some of them have been tricky.

Science:

The past 2 weeks have been so fun! We made snow with Ms. Courtney and balancing robots with Ms. Rachel. Everyone loved it!

Thematic Centers:

We started our authors unit this week by studying Helen Lester. Her books are full of great lessons and cute characters! Many children recognized the Tacky the Penguin book right away. We read Listen Buddy, Tackylocks, Me First and several others. We only rotated through 2 centers this week and will rotate through 2 more next week.

1. After we read the book Listen Buddy we discussed the importance of using your listening ears. We talked about what it looks like to pay close attention to the sounds around you. Every child got to go on a sound walk all around the school (inside and out) and listen for what was happening. One little guy even said "wow I never knew how many planes flew over us!"

2. Because Helen Lester wrote so many books about Tack the Penguin we decided to study about penguins. We read several non fiction books about penguins and this week focused on blubber that keeps penguins warm. Blubber can also be found on polar bears and whales. Each child stuck their hand in ice water. They described what it felt like (it stung, it was freezing, it made my skin red etc). Then children got to place their hand in "blubber" (a bag full of Crisco). They immediately noticed the difference. There was a recording sheet to go with it. If you want to repeat this experiment at home, a quick google search will give you all the details of how to make the Crisco bag.


Have a great long weekend and safe travels to those of you who are traveling!
Mrs. Schultz