It is hard to believe that we are down to the last two days before winter break! This month has flown by. This past week we focused on learning about Kwanzaa. Kwanzaa is a celebration that honors African heritage and begins on December 26 and lasts until January 1. We were fortunate to have Dr. Tehia Glass, from UNCC, come and speak to us this week about this time of wonderful celebration. Dr. Glass brought some special artifacts, that have been passed down in her family, that she uses to celebrate Kwanzaa and shared these with our class. She explained that there are seven days of Kwanzaa, and each day represents one of the core principals that they celebrate. These seven principals are unity, self-determination, collective work and responsibility, cooperative economics, purpose, creativity, and faith. Some of the artifacts, or symbols of Kwanzaa, she shared with us were a Mkeka, or mat, on which other symbols are placed. She showed us her Kinara (candle holder) which has three red candles, three green candles and one black candle in the middle. The black candle is used to light the other candles. One candle is lit each day during Kwanzaa. She also brought in corn and fruits and vegetables to show us, as corn is the primary symbol for both decoration and dining, and fruits and vegetables are grown or bought from a farmers market to represent African idealisms. She also brought her special unity cup to show us. The family drinks water out of this special cup to represent family unity and to give thanks. The greeting for each day of Kwanzaa is Habari Gani? which is Swahili for "How are you?"
In our centers this week we made a book about Kwanzaa. We have been talking about doing our best work when making books. We also have been practicing reading these books to a grown up when we are finished. Please have your child read his/her book to you when he/she brings it home. Have him/her point to the words as he/she reads. If you have a shoe box let your child decorate it and keep his/her special books that he/she makes in the box. Revisit these books frequently, as familiar rereads are a great way to help emergent readers. It builds confidence and fluency! Our cooking center this week was using red and green M & M's on pretzel rods to make a Kinara. Your child should have brought home the recipe for this. This is another great way to practice reading as well as following multi-step directions in a fun way. Next, we worked on our fine motor skills by beading Kwanza bracelets using red, green and black beads. We also created a Kwanzaa necklace using the symbols of Kwanzaa. See if your child can retell you about the many things they know about this holiday by using the pictures on the necklace as a guide. Our final center was creating a unity cup glyph. This was our first time creating a glyph and the students did really well with this. Students had to choose certain symbols to put on their cups based on questions they were asked. For example they had to put a zig zag line on their cup if they were a boy and a curvy line on their cup if they were a girl. They had to put a certain amount of dots on their cup to represent pets or no pets, etc. See if your child can explain their glyph to you when he/she brings it home.
Our reading lessons this week focused on using pictures to help us think about the story. I read the students the book Carl's Christmas. This is a wordless picture book. We discussed how even though this book had almost no words at all in it I could still read the story just by using the pictures. We talked about how even though right now we might not be able to read all the words in books we are all still readers because we can use the pictures to help us think about and read the story. We practiced this on our own during our readers workshop time. Students were given three sticky notes to find three places in the book where they used the pictures to help them read or figure out what was going on in the story. They did an EXCELLENT job with this! We then transferred this skill into our writers workshop time. We read a book called My House. In this book the little boy talks about all the rooms in his house. He shows all the many different things he does in his house by using pictures and he also adds labels to his pictures. We talked about how labels can help the reader better understand what a certain picture may be expressing. Ms. Joy came to our class last week to talk about the athletic field and asked us to draw pictures of any ideas we might have for our new facility. We drew pictures for her of this and added labels so that she would be able to know exactly what our ideas were. Some of our students have BIG plans for Ms. Joy! :) We also wrote thank you letters to Dr. Glass. We drew our favorite Kwanzaa symbols and labeled them for her as well.
In math this week we focused on greater than, less than and equal to. We played a game using five frames where students rolled a die. They had to place the number of cubes they rolled on the frame. Their partner then rolled and did the same. Partners had to determine who had the highest number and the lowest number. The highest number got all the cubes until one of the partners had all of the cubes. We also talked about good sportsmanship and how at the end of a game whether we win or we lose we shake hands and say, "good game." The students did very well with all of these concepts. Our book buddies also taught us a new math game using ten frames. It was called Race to the Top. Students rolled a die and recorded the number he/she rolled. The first number to get to the top of the grid was the winning number. Students had to determine which number he/she rolled the most and least amount of times.
Don't forget that we are making gingerbread houses on Tuesday at 1:00. All parents are invited to attend/help. We would love to have someone from each family attend so that each child will have someone to help them. However, if this is not possible it is totally fine, just let us know and we will gladly assist your child. Because it will be near the end of the day if you would like to take your child once we are finished you are welcome to do so. It is going to be great fun!
Upcoming Events:
Tuesday, December 19 @ 1:00 - Gingerbread Houses
December 20-January 2 - Winter Break
January 3 - Classes Resume, first day back from Winter Break
January 9 - Parent Advisory, 7:30
January 11 - Lottery Open House, 9:15 and 6:30
January 12 - CSD vs PLP home basketball game
January 15 - No School MLK Day
January 17 - Pancake Fundraiser at the Egg in Davidson 4pm -8pm
January 26 - No School, Teacher Workday
January 29 - No School, Teacher Workday
January 30 - 100th day of school, Lottery Open House, 9:15
No comments:
Post a Comment