Week in Review--Grinch Week

Reading:

In reading this week, we learned about the reading strategy “Ask and Respond to Questions”. Readers who are actively involved reading ask themselves questions before, during and after reading a selection. This not only increases their comprehension of what is being read, but fully engages them in the reading process. As readers, if we are fully engaged in the reading process, we are more likely to remember important details and information. Asking questions is a great way for readers to monitor their comprehension of a text. In class, your child has learned that as readers we generate questions during reading but all questions might not be answered.

We also learned all about the -op family. To kick off our learning of this word family, we watched a video that had us reading and learning new words that end with the -op sound. We built words in the -op family, we went on a word hunt where we chopped the sounds up in the word and found it in a pile of other -op words and we practiced rhyming with all of the words in the -op family.

Our vocabulary words this week went with the story The Grinch Who Stole Christmas. We loved learning all about the words sneer, beneath, ramshackle, nimbly, flue and mistletoe. .

Our new sight words: did, play

**Be sure to keep the white sight word cards from week to week and continue to practice all of them as new ones are sent home every week.

Our Poem of the Week:

iPad Fun:

Reading

• Draw and Tell: We used the app Draw and Tell this week and took it a step further than when we used it before. We were able to choose the background we wanted for our story, add stickers and illustrations. After our picture was finished, we recorded a story and moved the stickers around in the story! When playing our recording back, it becomes an animated story. What fun!
• Google Classroom: We uploaded our Draw and Tell recordings into Google Classroom. We are getting better and better at learning how to do this task independently!
• QR Codes and Sky Write: We scanned QR codes that took us to a holiday themed photo. We then practiced being a smarty speller by opening up the app Sky Write and saying the word like a turtle, stretching it like a snake and writing down the sounds we hear!

I put together several of the Draw and Tell stories that were uploaded to Google Classroom and they are adorable! Take a look at the video below!

Math

• Book Creator: This week students used the app Book Creator on their own by adding a journal entry of the activity number of the day! We have been doing number of the day as a whole class since the first week of school and they are now experts and are able to do this on their own! They rolled a dice to find their number, wrote the number, the number word, drew the dice, tally marks, number of shapes and number line! They finished the activity by recording their voice explaining their thinking and what they did with the number of the day.
• Number Lines: Students used this app to practice addition, sequencing, number order, skip counting and more using a number line!

Writing:

Writer’s Workshop this week, we reviewed how to be a smarty speller. We used white boards and practiced saying various words slowly like a turtle, stretching them like a snake and writing down the sounds we hear. Later on in the week we discussed how we can write more than one sentence on a page if we have a lot to say in our stories. We looked at books we have read in class and saw how the author sometimes writes a lot on the pages and other times not as much. It was a great lesson to compare our writing to that of real published authors. We are continuing to write fantasy and true stories and publishing any of our finished books into Book Creator!

Math:

Our math vocabulary word this week was the word “longer, shorter, taller”. We learned when you compare objects standing up you use the words taller and shorter and if they are laying down then you would use the words longer and shorter. Shorter is used in both scenarios! We also focused on weight this week and used the words heavier and lighter. We watched two videos this week that showed us all about length and weight. We then completed an activity where we measured different objects and predicted which would be heavier or lighter. We also figured out ways to make both sides of the scale weigh the same!

Hour of Code:

Something EXTRA in math time this week was our focus on the HOUR OF CODE and computer science. Teaching computer science skills is becoming more and more important in schools today. The skills learned when practicing coding help students with problem solving, innovate with technology and critical thinking. We completed and learned how to practice coding with two different apps on our iPads. We used the apps Kodable and The Foos. Both apps have students programming characters on the screen to get from point A to point B in various ways. Sometimes they might need to make the character turn, jump or stop. These are just a few examples of what the students had to do in order to code the character. We built excitement up for our Hour of Code by practicing as a class both apps and having students show off and work together to solve the problems. Then on Wednesday, we set off on our own! This special Hour of Code is always one of my most favorite days of the year. The students have so much fun learning and they do not even realize how much they are actually gaining that will help them in any future career!

STEM Activity:

This week we completed a STEM (Science Technology Engineering and Math) where Santa sent us a video QR code with our classroom elf Bun Bun and he gave the students a scenario where they had to create a reindeer out of the provided materials so he could learn how to get his reindeer to fly even faster. I did not give them a model to go off of, I only told them the reindeer had to have a body, four legs, antlers, eyes and a nose. How they put all of the materials together was up to them. The object after making the reindeer was to see how fast the reindeer could fly from one point to the other and we discussed and learned what factors made each reindeer fly at a different pace than other ones. It was such a fun activity and we are excited for our next STEM challenge!

Content:

This week was all about Thanksgiving!

• Monday--We learned about the coding app The Foos
• Tuesday--We learned about the coding app Kodable
• Wednesday--We flew our reindeer down a hanging string in our classroom to see what made them fly fast or slow.
• Thursday--We completed a craft to go along with The Grinch Who Stole Christmas where we listed ways we could make the Grinch grin.
• Friday--We had an entire day of Grinch fun! We started off with green tables, watched the movie, ate green cookies, drank green juice, traced sight words with green glue and completed a Grinch craft. What a fun day!

Social Emotional Learning (SEL):

Social and emotional learning (SEL) is the process through which children and adults acquire and effectively apply the knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary to understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions.

This week’s SEL focus was learning about HONESTY. Honesty is ... being truthful in what we say and do. Honesty can be demonstrated through what we say, such as through telling the truth, including only facts, and admitting when we are wrong. Honesty can be demonstrated through what we do (our actions), such as through working hard and using our own abilities to complete a task, returning things that belong to others, and following through with our promises.

A few discussion questions to talk with your child at home about this topic:

-How would you feel if you found out someone had lied to you?

-Describe the last time you had an experience where you may have not told the truth or felt nervous about doing something that wasn’t the best choice..

-How do you feel after telling the truth?

PRACTICE AT HOME:

Have your child write down words of objects and/or things you are doing around the house. At first just write one word at a time and progress to writing the words into a sentence!

Next Week:

• In reading we will focus on retelling familiar stories.
• In writing we will finish up our True Story writing unit and write letters to Santa
• In math we will review several previously learned skills
• Our theme next week is all The Polar Express! Don’t forget pajama day on Friday!

 

Important Dates/Information:

**Go to our classroom webpage if you want to see important dates on a calendar! I will update this classroom calendar as dates and events come about.

• 12/16--The Polar Express Day
• 12/19--Elf Day
• 12/20--Ornament Day 1:45-2:45 if you signed up to send in a craft and/or bring a craft to create with the class, please let me know if you have any questions or need anything!
• 12/21--Last Day of First Semester
• 12/21--Purdue Basketball Game Behavior Celebration, don’t forget a sack lunch!