Wednesday, November 23, 2016

Week in Review--Thanksgiving!

Reading:

In reading this week, we reviewed and practiced the reading strategies retell a familiar story, respond to questions about a book and relate a personal experience to a story. These strategies help children with their comprehension of a story and relating events in a story to themselves helps students remember the events and even to predict what might happen.

We also learned all about the -it 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 -it sound. We built words in the -it family, we went on a word hunt where we chopped the sounds up in the word and found them in a pile and fed the words to our turkey who gobbled them up!


Our vocabulary words this week went with the story Bread Comes to Life. We loved learning all about the words crop, golden, sprout, sturdy, grind and patch.

Our new sight words: she, you

**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
  • Hand Turkey/ChatterKid: We used these two apps to create a turkey out of our hand and then make that turkey talk! We recorded ourselves saying something that we are thankful for during this holiday season.
  • Google Classroom: We uploaded our turkey recordings into Google Classroom. We are getting better and better at learning how to do this task independently!
  • Tellagami: A few students did not have a chance to complete their tellagami videos from last week, so we had it as a choice again. Once they finished and uploaded to Google Classroom they were able to go practice with the app Partners in Rhyme.



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.
  • Geoboard: Students used a geoboard app to create various pictures using shapes and the rubber bands on the app!


Writing:

Writer’s Workshop this week was continuing to focus on writing a True Story. We learned how to use a writer’s checklist to make sure we are getting all of the pieces to a true story and writing that we need before we are finished with the piece. We also learned about speech bubbles and wrote what we are thankful for in the speech bubble to go with our turkeys!






Math:

We reviewed all of our math vocabulary words this week and our number stories. We also practiced addition, counting and 3D shapes!

Students have a few new choices during independent work time. They are practicing subitizing with dominoes and then “driving” them into a parking lot that matches the number on the domino, they are able to do a number of the day entry using white boards and the last new choice is practicing different ways to make a number. For that last choice, students are using number bracelets or math tools to help determine different ways to make a number. The students then write the addition sentence on a recording page.




Content:

This week was all about Thanksgiving!

  • Monday--We shared our turkey’s in disguise!
  • Tuesday--We made our fest outfits!
  • Wednesday--We made a place mat for our feast and turned ourselves into turkeys! We also had our feast in our classroom during lunch!











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 GRATITUDE. We watched a video where Kid President told us things he is thankful for and then we completed a chart coming up with ideas of people, places and things we are thankful for. We learned that “gratitude” is a fancy word for thankful and this week the entire country focuses on being thankful for their life.

A few discussion questions to talk with your child at home about this topic:
--What is one thing you are thankful for at home? Why?
--What is one thing you are thankful for at school? Why?
--What is one thing you are thankful for about another person? Why?





PRACTICE AT HOME:
When reading a story, have your child connect something about the story to his/her life and retell their story using a beginning, middle and end just like in the book.

Next Week:
  • In reading we will focus on sequencing a story.
  • In writing we will write fiction stories.
  • In math we will focus on addition.
  • Our theme next week is all about Gingerbread!

 
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.

  • 11/24-11/25--NO SCHOOL THANKSGIVING
  • 12/2--Spirit Day MME Gear
  • 12/8--Barnes and Noble Night
  • 12/9--Spirit Day Wear PJ’s