Week in Review--Dr. Seuss (Week 1)

Reading:

-We had TWO sight words this week-- “he, no”.

-The CAFÉ strategy we worked on this week was the strategy.

“Recognize and Explain Cause & Effect Relationships”

Understanding cause-­and-­effect relationships is a basic thinking skill. It is a strategy used by readers to understand why things happen the way they do in the text. Students are taught to look for clue words that will assist them in determining the cause and effect of the events in the text. It is a strategy that is not only used in reading, but it is experienced in day to day life.

How can you help your child with this strategy at home?

1.     Encourage your child to look for clue words when reading. These clue words include: because, if, then, since, so, therefore, & as a result of.

2.     When reading with your child, show examples of cause-­and-­effect relationships in the text. This modeling is essential to understanding.

3.     Sometimes we need to infer the cause because it is not always stated in the text. If this is the case, ask your child “Why do you think this happened?”

4.     Give examples of cause-and-effect relationships throughout your life—in your family, in sports, and in your friendships.

We also completed several other fun activities this week!

• We have a new choice during Read with Someone. The reading pair can pick 1-2 books from our BIG book stand to read together. They are still able to read books from their book boxes as well, but this choice has been...you guessed it--a BIG hit!
• Since we started our 2 week Dr. Seuss unit this week, students brought in some of their favorite books from home to share with the class. When students go to either Read to Self or Work on Writing, they are able to take 1-2 books from the class pile and read them! Thank you to everyone who donated books for us to borrow this past week and next!
• During our "A"ccuracy lesson practicing our word families this week we built a word with a partner. One student had the beginning sound (the onset) and the other student had the ending (the rhyme). They were to find a match, build the word and come up with a sentence using their word! They did a GREAT job!
• We also practiced two new options at Word Work this week. We completed a whole group puzzle activity piecing cards with opposites and rhyming words on them together. This is now a choice at for a student to choose. They complete the activity by matching the cards/words and then write them on their white board!

Math:

-We added a new choice to Number Work this week and switched out a previous choice to be more challenging. Every day we complete an activity called “Number of the Day”. This activity hits several skills that are practiced throughout kindergarten. The students are now able to do this activity independently as a choice. They were SO excited! Our second change to Number Work is that I took out practicing writing numbers 1-20 and put in a small hundreds chart for practice writing and counting from 1-100!

-We also continued to focus on decomposing numbers in more than one way! They are getting REALLY good at this skill. We will put a choice to practice it into Math with Someone next week!

Writing:

-We worked more and more on writing How To books. We practiced writing them as a group and in small groups. I saw several students also writing informational pieces during independent writing time and heard several during share time. The students are full of so much information, it’s important they learn how to write about it and share their knowledge with others!

-A few reminders as you prepare to begin the March Write-O assignment next week. Please remember to let your child stretch out words and write down the sounds they hear, have him/her write at least 2-3 sentences for each entry and you are able to jump around the writing topics board. This is a time where you are able to see where your child is when it comes to writing. They have come such a far way since August! J


Surfer of the Week Surprise:

Lexi was our Surfer of the Week this week and her mom brought in a Leopard Gecko from the Columbian Park Zoo where she is a Zoo Keeper! It was a lot of fun learning all about the lizard AND getting to pet her!


Content:
     We made it through the shortest, but sometimes feels like the longest month! We had yet another great week learning all about Dr. Seuss! We will learn about him as an author, illustrator and studying his books next week as well. We started our Dr. Seuss fun off by watching a short video that explained who he was and interesting facts about him. We then completed a Popplet of what we learned! We continued our Dr. Seuss fun throughout the week by reading several of his books both whole group and independently. We talked about how he LOVES to rhyme! We read the book Yertle the Turtle and then made our very own turtles and completed a turtle stack! We were only able to make it to 12 turtles before the stack fell over. We then read the story The Butter Battle and made a graph deciding if we thought buttered bread tasted better right side up or upside down! We finished the week reading The Lorax and created truffula trees! We are excited for more Dr. Seuss fun next week!




























Other:

We had a REAL life author come to visit our school on Friday morning. Shannon Anderson is a local author who has written several books. Her most famous book is called "I Am Not a Pirate". She talked to us about why she loves to write, how she writes and what inspires her to write.