A holiday gift is coming to your family which showcases your child’s diligent work, so if you are planning to leave before vacation officially begins, please let me know; I want to make certain I can get your gift to you! Additionally, if you have not sent in family photographs, please do so by Monday! They are needed for the gift!
Furthermore, keep sending in those Helping Hands papers! This project coordinates with our Family Unit, and we have almost completed the art component! Room #7 has been talking a lot about families and how they are the same and different. If you have not discussed with your child what he/she does at home to help out his/her family, please do so by Tuesday! Thank you for all of your help and cooperation, families!
We have started a new unit in Writer’s Workshop: pattern books! The cherubs were thrilled to start this new unit and did an amazing job with it! One way to encourage the kids to write is to give them a purpose to compose by presenting to them the kinds of books they like to read - ones that are often predictable and follow a certain type of pattern. To begin, the class and I read a variety of these types of books, and the kids were quick to notice the patterns. They also remarked how the last page was always just a little bit different. The boys and girls picked several subjects on which to write: what dogs play with, themselves, their siblings, what he/she likes to play, animals, etc. I cannot express how engaged, involved, and excited they were to do this writing – it was incredibly refreshing! We will continue with pattern books for a few weeks and then put them in our very own library! So thrilling!
Math stations this week were all about measuring, more and less, and a little bit of addition! The cherubs are doing such an excellent job with all this difficult work!
· More and Less Dominoes – To begin this activity, the kiddos picked a specific domino as the goal number. Students then took turns choosing dominoes and determining if their dominoes were more, less or the same as the chosen domino. The kiddos sorted their dominoes on the work mat according to where the numbers belonged.
· Highlight Teen Numbers – At this independent work station, students drew cards from a deck of numbers and had to discern if that number were a teen number. Then, they got their detective eyes on and searched for that number in a large grid of numbers. As they found the numbers, they highlighted them! What a fun way to practice number recognition and identification!
· Exploring the Pan Balance – Last Friday, I introduced the balance to the class. They loved predicting what items would be heavier than others and were amazed to see when 2 different items balanced each other out. During Math stations, the students explored the pan balance with a variety of materials (e.g.: dominoes, counters, pompoms, etc.) to see which was heavier, which was lightest, and how many more or less of a material it took to even the balance out. The kiddos loved this station!!
· iPad – Park Math – At this popular station, the boys and girls of Room #7 got to try out a new activity within Park Math! In the game, the students have to figure out how to balance a seesaw. On the seesaw are different amounts of cute mice. Through trial and error, the kids either added on or took away mice to balance the weight! What a great connection to our pan balance as well!
· Counting on Cup – In this game, one person turned over the top number card and put that number of counters in the cup. Next, he/she rolled the die (+1, +1, +2, +2) and placed that many counters next to the cup. Finally, he/she decided how many counters there were in all and filled in the record sheet.
· Count on 1 More – Independently, students turned over a number card and represented that number with buttons on their “work board”. They then counted out one more in their head and used counters to represent this number on their “work board”.
· Domino Concentration – At this fun memory game, the students turned over dominoes and number cards to find matches! We started talking about subitizing at this station, the act of glancing at the number of items presented and knowing immediately the corresponding number. They loved using the new language! We also chatted about counting on. After subitizing, they could then count on to determine how many dots total there were on the domino!
During one of our whole group instruction times, the class began to learn about how teen numbers are constructed of tens and ones. We began this important work 2 weeks ago when I asked students to represent teen numbers using just their fingers. They quickly figured out that they need 2 sets of hands (2 cherubs) to represent those numbers. The students then practiced representing those double-digit numbers together and then writing the corresponding number sentence.
This can be a difficult concept to wrap one’s head around. This week, the boys and girls learned a fun song to help them remember:
The teen comes first,
The teen comes first,
I know why it works that way...
The group of ten comes first!!
We discussed how you can “break” a number into its group of tens and ones. For example, when one breaks the number 19, one represents it like this: 10 + 9. We practiced breaking numbers using dry erase boards and markers. The kids really enjoyed the work!
I have been working with the children’s names at school to help them learn some key understandings about print and how it works. One of the most important keys is that first and last letters have particular meanings when applied to print; for example, the first letter of a word is on the left and the last letter in a word is the farthest to the right. Additionally, a concept the kiddos have been working hard to remember is that the last letter comes before the space!
In class, the children are paying close attention to letter features and letter names as they work with their own names. They also explored the idea that in a word (in this case, a name) the letters are always in the same order.
Have a wonderful weekend!