Reading:
In reading this week, we focused on the “Make a Mental Picture”. Teaching this reading strategy is a very important one, not only in helping with reading comprehension but also in remembering daily events. If you have ever lost something or forgot where you put something, the first thing you usually do is retrace your steps and go back and visualize the last time you remember having it. Making a picture in our mind helps us recall events more clearly. The same is true when reading a story. When readers read or have a text read to them, they make a mental picture or movie in their mind. This helps a reader remember more of what they read or heard. Creating a mind movie uses both prior background knowledge, as well as listening skills when reading or hearing a text.
To kick off our learning of this week’s word families we watched a video that had us reading and learning new words that end with the vowel pairs -ui and -oa. We built words in both families and to review both word families we watched a Google Slide that showed the word, students had to read the word and then we checked our answer by clicking to the next slide that showed the picture. It was so much fun! We love doing this activity!
Our vocabulary words this week went with the book Oscar and the Frog. We loved learning all about the words bank, gills, hatch, shrink, stared, tadpole.
Our new sight words: little, would
**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
- Pebble Go/ChatterKid: We took the time during our first rotation to just explore as many sections of the insect section on PebbleGo as possible. We looked through different types of insects and more! We also learned how to save an image on an iPad using our finger by holding it down and waiting until the “save image” box pops up. We then opened that image up into ChatterKid and recorded a fact we learned from PebbleGo! We uploaded our finished product into Google Classroom!
- Sight Word Bingo:: Second round of iPad was an exciting sight word learning game this week!
- Reading Eggs/QR Books: Third round all students completed lessons in Reading Eggs and/or listened to stories on “tape” using QR codes inside picture books.
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.
- 10 Frame Fill: What practiced our knowledge of ways to make 10 this week using the ten frame fill app. This app gives students part of the way to make ten and then has the student either give the answer and/or add the missing pieces to the ten frame to count up to ten.
Writing:
Writer’s Workshop this week, we continued learning about our new writing unit Opinion Writing. We started the week off by learning about “plain vs fancy words”. We read a story called Fancy Nancy. In these books, the main character Nancy loves using fancy words. She always tells the reader what the “plain” word is and what word she uses instead. All week we focused on trying to change at least one word in our writing to make it “fancier”. If we notice that we use the word “good” or “nice” all of the time, we worked on challenging ourselves to make a different word.
We also learned about writing book reviews. We took our vocabulary book and wrote a review using our OREO format. Students wrote book reviews using books in their book boxes and changing plain words to fancy words all week!
Math:
Math this week we learned all about the vocabulary term decompose. We learned that when you decompose numbers, you break the number apart. It may not always be equal, but always can be put back together to the original number. Throughout the week we practiced decomposing numbers with math tools. Illustrations and even showed decomposing on our iPads with Popplet!
Content:
This week was all about Insects!
- Monday--We received our caterpillars in the mail! For the next couple of weeks we will be watching the caterpillars grow and change into butterflies. We created our butterfly journals on Monday using Google Drawing and Book Creator.
- Tuesday--Half of the class completed their first butterfly journal observation.
- Wednesday--The other half of the class completed their first butterfly journal observation.
- Thursday--We learned the differences between a bug and an insect.
- Friday--We created and labeled parts of an insect!
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 RESPONSIBILITY. We learned what the word meant and each day we talked about our specific responsibilities during different parts of our school day. We shared things about those times of the day that show that we have a lot of responsibility that we, as students, are in charge of. There are things that I, as the teacher, must provide in order for those responsibilities to be met, but we learned that with as many students as there are in class it’s not feasible for the teacher to do everything for every student all day long. We learned the differences between a right and responsibility.
A few discussion questions to talk with your child at home about this topic:
-What are some of your responsibilities at home?
-What happens if you don’t complete your responsibilities?
-What is something that is not your responsibility?
PRACTICE AT HOME:
Have your child practice decomposing numbers. They know how to use either objects and/or an illustration to show the different ways to make a number by decomposing.
Next Week:
- In reading we will focus on “Cross-Checking””
- In writing we will continue working on Opinion Writing
- In math we will learn how to COMPOSE numbers 1-9 in two different ways.
- Our theme next week is all about INSECTS again :)! Specifically focusing on butterflies.
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.
- 4/12-Do you know of any incoming kindergarteners for next school year? Round-up is scheduled for April 12th from 6-7PM! Help us spread the word!
- 4/13--Author Visit--Laurie Keller
- 4/14--Spring Pictures
- 4/24--Mid-Spring Break NO SCHOOL for no missed days of school through 4/7
- 5/5--MME School Carnival 6-8PM
- 5/9--Field Trip to the Indianapolis Zoo (more info to come after spring break)
- 5/11 & 5/12--Muffins with Mom
- 5/22--Kindergarten Graduation 10AM
- 5/24--LAST DAY OF SCHOOL
