In our centers this week we graphed orange, yellow, red, green and purple goldfish just like in the book One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish, Blue Fish. We had lots of fun sorting the fish, counting and graphing them, and then we enjoyed our fish as a yummy snack! We created our own "Things," right out of the book The Cat in the Hat. Each child decided if he/she wanted to create Thing 1 or Thing 2. Then students got to blow paint the Thing's hair. This was lots of fun, and really worked on our mouth muscles! (Did you know that a great exercise to work on strengthening mouth muscles is sucking thick liquids through a straw? Milkshakes, pudding, yogurt and any other thick liquid is great to build these muscles. This is an activity that our speech teachers will recommend for students to practice to make those mouth muscles stronger!) Our next center involved stamping apples on top of our heads (in a picture) like in the book Ten Apples Up on Top. Each student stamped the number of apples he/she wanted on top of his/her head and then wrote about how many were "up on top." They also got to sample different varieties of apples and got to graph which apple they enjoyed the most. Finally, each student created a rhyming book in the style of Dr. Seuss.
During our literacy workshop time this week we introduced the strategy of "Lips the Goldfish." He helps us remember to get our mouths ready when we are trying to solve a new word. We have to get our mouths ready for the first sound in the word. We practiced this along with our eagle eye strategy during reader's workshop. We also worked on lots of rhyming and word families this week. Students completed a word sort with several different word families. Have your child practice reading these words to you and noticing the patterns.
In math this week we introduced range cards. After assessing each student individually, they were given a range of three numbers to work with on their range cards. For example, they may have had the range of 3, 4, 5. Students could choose a number they wanted to work on for example, 4, and using manipulatives they created as many different fact families (or combinations) for this number as possible. (i.e: 1+4, 4+1, 0+4, 4+0, 2+2, 3+1, 1+3) Some of their combinations may have repeated, but the goal is to try to find a variety of combinations. After they complete this number they may work on the next number (3 or 5). Students used red and blue colored beans to help them make these combinations on a work mat. This process helps students work towards fact fluency and number sense. We will continue to work with range cards throughout the year, and introduce a variety of manipulatives that these can be used to complete these. We will of course work on these as we continue to teach a variety of other math concepts as well.
In science we made oobleck, just like in the Dr. Seuss book Bartholomew and the Oobleck. After we created the oobleck, we put a variety of objects in it to see if they would sink or float. It was interesting to see the students predictions compared to what actually happened in the experiment. It was also interesting to see which items floated and sank in the different batches of oobleck that we made. We had great fun touching and feeling the oobleck for some ooey, gooey, science fun!
Tomorrow our wood working center will open up, and the students have been very excited for this! Students will be allowed to tinker with scraps of wood, popsicle sticks, twine, markers, duct tape, wood glue and a variety of other materials to create their own wooden masterpieces. If you see a piece of wood art come home in your child's book bag I wanted you to know where it came from! :)
Please remember that we would like for each child to bring in a leprechaun trap on Friday. We will "set" the traps before we leave in hopes of catching a leprechaun over the weekend. Please let your child be creative and take ownership in this process, it is for fun and creativity, and should be kid centered! :)
This week we will study the author Mem Fox. She is one of my personal favorite authors. She has written lots of children's books, but she has also written books for adults as well. One of my favorites is Reading Magic. I highly recommend this book to all kindergarten mommies and daddies and have several copies you are welcome to borrow if you would like to read this book. Listed below is a link to Fox's website that has wonderful ideas from her book about reading aloud with your child. Enjoy!
http://memfox.com/for-parents/for-parents-ten-read-aloud-commandments/
Upcoming Events
March 13 - Love and Logic 8:30 am
March 14 - ASE session 3 ends (there are no Thursday or Friday ASE classes this week due to original snow days.)
March 15 - School in Session (Snow Make up Day)
March 16 - School in Session (Snow Make up Day)
March 19 - ASE session 4 begins
March 20 - Love and Logic class 8:30 am
March 21-24 - The Little Mermaid performance by the Middle School students
March 27 - Love and Logic class 8:30 am
Parent Safety Meeting 3:30 pm and 6:30 pm HS Blackbox
March 30 - Spring Break begins
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