As we continue to work with counting, shapes, and teen numbers, the boys and girls are becoming more comfortable and more importantly, more confident within our Math workshops. It is always amazing to see the progress they are making as every day passes!
- A Colorful Feast - At this station, the kiddos helped themselves to a Thanksgiving feast! Each child dished out servings of cranberries, turkey, potatoes, and corn (represented by colorful cubes). Next, they lined them up and used invisible buddy lines to determine the least and the most colorful “foods” they had served themselves. Finally, when asked specific questions, the “turkey eaters” figured out how many more they each had of the various foods. What fun!
- Turkey Tessellation – Using various pattern block shapes, the boys and girls of Room #7 created a turkey!
- Turkey War – At this festive station, the cherubs played the game of “War” with turkey-themed decks of cards. During this game, each person had his/her own deck of cards. Simultaneously, each child revealed his/her top card – the person with the greater number won those two cards. The tricky part of this game was determining which card was greater since they had different representations of a specific number. Each deck of cards had either a 10 frame OR a numeral. This was a super fun center! The kiddos are eager to use these cards again - maybe to make a match next time!
- Spin and Write Teen Numbers - Using a spinner with all of our teen numbers represented in 10-frame form, the kiddos spun, then practiced writing that number on their board. They always had to remember: “Numbers in the teens start with a ONE!”
- Tell Me Fast – This station encourages instant recognition of quantities to ten. The boys and girls of Room #7 were asked to use their subitizing and number combination skills to discern how many dots were on each card. The kids absolutely loved stating the number as quickly as they possibly could!
- Turkey Teen Book – Let’s decompose teen numbers! In this festive book, students had to represent their teen numbers in a variety of ways: on ten frames, by writing the numeral, and by drawing that many (e.g., 13 x’s, 13 lines, etc.) The kiddos had a lot of fun with this cheerful station!
Last week, in Reader’s Workshop, Room #7 embarked on a new unit: Super Powers!!! In this unit, the readers in our room will build upon their work from our first unit to develop concepts of one to one matching that will help them understand that the print conveys meaning. This unit is incredibly exciting as it reveals to them that they have special super powers for reading! This week, we focused on pointer power. Developing this one to one matching will help them eventually move into more conventional reading. Help them to practice this skill at home by saying, “Pointer power, activate” and watch with amazement as they (hopefully) point to various words as they read :)!
With the upcoming holiday, Room #7 has talked A LOT about Thanksgiving and what it means. Here are a few of the activities we did this week in order to cement the meaning of this fun and important day!
- I am thankful for…. After reading several books about thankfulness, the kiddos shared all the people and things they are thankful for. For example: family, baby brothers and sisters, homes, good food to eat, teachers, etc. Very sweet.
- On Monday, Room #7 learned about the very first Thanksgiving. After reading Thanksgiving is…. by Gail Gibbons, the class talked about the sequence of events that led up to this special day. In order to help them retell the story and include most of the events, the students made their very own Thanksgiving retelling bracelets, where each bead on the bracelet represented a specific part of the Pilgrims’ story. Everyone worked super hard on this activity and did a great job retelling the story to a variety of friends and adults! Ask your child to repeat the story to you!
The Night Before Thanksgiving is a story that follows the format of the book The Night before Christmas. Many of the kiddos recognized the familiar cadence and remarked that the Thanksgiving book reminded them of the Christmas story. I told them that “Oh my gosh! You all just made a text-to-text connection!! Wowza!” This type of connection occurs when something in one book reminds the reader of something that one has read in another text. The class and I then discussed what this term means, and I challenged them to make other text-to-text connections with other stories!
Happy, happy Thanksgiving! I hope you all enjoy time with your families!