Room #7 is full of writers! They are writing up a storm! It’s amazing to see how much they are writing. For the past few weeks, the cherubs have been working hard to remember what good writers must do to create. Here’s a list they came up with. Your children think about:
- Writing true stories that happen to them
- Visualizing their story so they can draw all the details
- Labeling their pictures
- Being a Rock Star Speller (how many letters can they write for each word)
- Revising (Yes! Revising! “When you think you’re done, you’ve only just begun.”)
- Solving problems – The boys and girls are independently attempting to solve problems as they arise while they work (e.g., need a new piece of paper, not sure what to write, writing words they don’t know)
- Being independent and the “boss” of their own writing!
- Using their circle words
And that’s just to name a few! This week, everyone focused on practicing something new that writers do: stretch out their words and write the corresponding sounds! In Writer’s Workshop, the kids are working diligently to identify as many sounds as they can. In order to do this, they stretch out their words like a rubber band so that they can hear the sounds. If they can identify what sounds they hear, they write them down. This is tricky work, and your writers are off to a fantastic start! Way to go, rock star spellers!
Math stations:
- Teen Puzzles – The kiddos concentrated on putting together a variety of puzzles. On the bottom of each puzzle were the numbers 11-19. This station had the students recognizing those numerals and putting them in consecutive order! The pictures also helped them to check their sequencing!
- Guess the Next Number - At this center, the children first lined up number cards from 1-20 (oohh a challenge!). Next, the kiddos closed their eyes, and I turned over various cards so that they could not see their numbers. When they opened their eyes, they used their knowledge of one more and one less to predict what the turned over cards were! Everyone did a magnificent job with this activity!
- Grow and Shrink with Ten Frames – This activity appears to be just a simple counting game, but it is one that allows children to begin to see relationships between numbers. Using our 10 frame manipulatives, the cherubs represented a number and then had to choose to either “grow” or “shrink” their manipulatives to represent the new number. This station was even trickier this week because the numbers are getting greater! The kiddos are really developing their number sense with this station!
- Pattern Block Puzzles – At this station, the students had the opportunity to explore relationships among shapes and determine how many ways the shapes could be arranged in a specific space. Using pattern blocks, the children filled in a particular puzzle shape in different ways and recorded the number of blocks used each time! Everyone became very creative with this station – definitely a fan favorite!
- Mix It Up! – This fun game could be played either with a partner or independently! Given a deck of number cards from 10-20, the students mixed up the cards and put them back in number order. It was really cool to watch them problem solve to make certain the numbers were in the correct positions. Additionally, the cherubs often sang parts of our teen number song to assist in this tricky work!
- The Counting Jar – An oldie, but a goodie! The students counted how many rods there were in the jar this week and then duplicated that number with a different material. Then, they used numerous ways to represent that number on our Counting Jar board. It was amazing to see all the various ways they chose to record the number (e.g., with shapes, tallies, numbers, and more!)
In Reader’s Workshop this week, 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 :) !
Enjoy the long weekend everyone! Fall is here!