Reading:
Our CAFE strategy this week was focusing on middle vowel pairs and blending those pairs together in the correct way. Sometimes vowel pairs follow certain rules and sometimes they don’t! We focused on blending those sounds, flipping the sounds and more! A few vowel pairs we focused on were “ee, ea, ie, oo, and ou”
It often requires a lot of patience to listen to beginning readers as they learn to decode and sound out words. Beginning readers usually learn their sounds in isolation and as a result sound choppy when they try to put these sounds together to make words. Taking the individual letter sounds and blending them together can be a first step to becoming a reader for many children. As with any other task, to improve in reading a person must have increased exposure and practice, practice, practice. Your child is working on the accuracy strategy of blending sounds. The following ideas provide you with suggestions on how you can assist your child in becoming a better reader..
How can you help your child with this strategy at home?
- When reading and blending sounds together, encourage your child to listen for a familiar word.
- Give your child a rubber band and have them take it between two hands. Write down a simple word for your child to read (3 letter words such as bat, dog, and cap). Have your child pull the band apart a bit with each sound in the word. This will have your child stretching out both the band and the word. When finished with all of the sounds, say the word together while bringing hands together.
- When reading, tell your child, “Say each letter as you stretch them out, then put them together and say it fast.” Demonstrate what this sounds like for your child.
- If your child is having difficulty blending sounds and still sounds choppy, encourage your child to sing as they sound out the word. It is almost impossible to make a word sound choppy when you are singing. .
iPad Fun:
Reading
- We used the app Buncee Edu and app smashed into Book Creator for a second week in a row. However, this time students had free choice on what picture, illustration and sentence they wanted to create. They LOVED the freedom!.
- We used the app Pebble Go for a second week, but this time students had free choice on what topic they watched and learned about. They then saved a picture from that topic and created a Pic Collage all about things they learned. Once again, they LOVED the freedom to pick what they wanted to learn and create!
- We then had Reading Eggs, Raz-Kids, QR listening books and Epic! as the other choices when we completed our first tasks!
Math
- This week we didn’t have as much time for math b/c we have been practicing for our graduation program, but we did continue to practice and review skills from the entire year and focused on writing and showing numbers in expanded form.
- We scanned QR codes around the room that revealed an addition or subtraction problem that we had to solve using one of our solving strategies. We wrote the problem and the answer down on a separate paper. There were 23 problems around the room, most students did not finish so we will continue completing this assignment next week.
- We also have our choices from previous weeks to complete tens/ones using the Number Pieces app and scanning QR codes to reveal subtraction and ten frame problems and where we scan a QR code that gives an addition sentence to 10 with a missing addend. The students then open up the DoodleBuddy app and complete the problem practicing their ways to make ten!
Writing:
We have been LOVING our new writing choices! We are writing away each and every day creating lists, writing letters, responding to pictures and more! I am sure some of you have received a letter or two from your child. I encourage you to write them back and talk about how they can write anyone and ask them questions, tell them about something special and just to say hi! Showing your child how you write in your daily life helps your child to know how writing is important as you get older and how you use it every single day.
Math:
We continued to review ways to show numbers up to 20 and practicing expanded form. Our math time was cut short this week due to graduation practice. We still found time to squeeze in math practice though.
Content:
This week was all about the Ocean!
- Monday we completed a fish writing and picture.
- Tuesday, we went on a field trip to the Indianapolis Zoo and saw many animals and a few are found in the ocean.
- Wednesday, we read a lot of ocean books with our substitute and did more math today and practiced our graduation program, so we didn’t get much content in today.
- Thursday, we were supposed to have our end of the year behavior celebration where we were to play Mrs. Bunch’s class in a kickball game, but it started to rain. We didn’t have any ocean activities planned, so we ended up enjoying some Free Play Thursday! We usually have free play Friday, but loved getting to have play time on Thursday!
- Friday, we created an underwater painting of our favorite ocean animal! We were also able to play our kickball game vs Mrs. Bunch's class in the morning!
Our ABC Countdown to Summer started this week! Here is the fun we had:
- P Day-We wore pajamas to school!
- Q Day-We were quiet when we came back from the zoo and chilled out!
- R Day-We had a reading recess wearing red noses that Caleb’s Grammy sent in for us to celebrate National Red Nose Day. This cause helps fight childhood poverty. We were happy to do our part in recognizing such a great cause!
- S Day-We wore silly socks to school today!
- T Day-We shared one of our favorite toys from home today!
Below are SEVERAL pictures and videos from our fun filled week!
PRACTICE AT HOME:
Have your child show you how we have been working on expanded form. Give them any number and have them draw it with the number pieces and then write the expanded form using the value of those number pieces to create the number!
Next Week:
- In reading we will focus reviewing strategies we have learned throughout the year
- In writing we will continue our new writing choices
- In math we will continue to review and practice concepts from the year.
- Our theme next week is all about the end of the school year and graduation!
Important Dates/Information:
- ABC Countdown to Summer continues this week with F, G, H, I and J. Be sure to check your calendar each night to see what the next day’s letter and activity is!
- 5/16 Kindergarten Graduation 10:00AM
- 5/17 Field Day 1:00PM
- 5/19 Talent Show
- 5/20 Awards program and the last day of school!
