I hope you all have a wonderful and relaxing break, whether you are traveling or enjoying a “stay-cation”! Here are a few highlights from the week!
The cherubs and I have been concentrating on saying and hearing the middle sounds in words. This is helping the class develop an understanding of how words are put together. The long vowel sounds, which sound like their letter names (a, e, i, o, u), are the easiest to hear. First, we listened to the sounds without looking at the letters, and, later we began to compare words and connect sounds with letters.
This week, Room #7 tackled some very tricky sounds – the “h” brothers: “ch,” “th,” “sh,” and “wh” and the sounds they make. The class and I made an anchor chart to show the different ways our mouths look when making the specific sounds as well as brainstormed all the different words that belong in each category. During Word Work in Reader’s Workshop as well as Morning Work, the kiddos practiced sorting various words and figuring out what brother each picture depicted. Ask your child to tell you all the sounds!
Our Math stations over the next few weeks will center mostly on addition and subtraction! The boys and girls are cementing their knowledge of these two tricky operations!
- Top it – Using number cards, this partner card game is similar to the game, War. Each student put down a number card, and together they decided which number was the least. The child with the lesser number card won and took the two cards.
- Valentine’s Day Addition – Using a die, students rolled two numbers and added them together on two broken hearts to make one complete heart! For an extra challenge, students did the work a second time but used two dice to make more difficult number sentences!
- Magic Picture – At this station, the boys and girls had to follow instructions carefully and utilize designated colors for specific numbers when coloring their picture! A Valentine’s Day surprise was revealed after they finished their coloring!
- iPad – subtraction! - At this iPad game, students worked to finish subtraction number sentences!
- Comparing Numbers –At this station, students practiced using the signs to compare various numbers. They whizzed through it!
- Bead Measuring – We combined estimation and counting again! At this engaging, new center, the mathematicians picked a bead “necklace” they wanted to measure. They first examined the necklace and estimated how many cubes long they thought it would be. After writing down that number, they then used the cubes to measure and see if their estimate were correct! We are getting better and better at this tricky skill of estimation!
- Fix-it Strips – At this center, students encountered a new and challenging concept of “changing numbers”. Independently, the kiddos received a fix-it strip. Using cubes, they built a tower that represented their first number. Next, they changed that tower to match the second number. I asked them to articulate what they did by telling me if they added or took away cubes and how many. The pictorial representations really enabled the students to visualize what they had to do. I was super impressed with how quickly the students caught onto this skill!
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Room #7 is full of resilient learners! On Friday, we read The Dot, by Peter Reynolds, an excellent, cute story with a profound message: instead of giving up, bounce back, and try again! The kiddos came up with an abundance of great self-talk to use when they are feeling defeated like, “Try and try. If something defeats you, don’t give up!” “ “If something defeats you, bounce back and try again!” Awesome mindset, boys and girls!
Have a restful, fun, and relaxing vacation! See you in a week!