On Friday, we went to Smolak Farm! Room #7 had a blast on the hayride, picking pumpkins, and eating a delicious apple cider donut snack. Thank you to the adults who chaperoned! It was a fabulous day!
Math Stations:
- Build a City – This partner activity had students building towers depending on the roll of the die. When their game was over, they had built a “city” of skyscraper towers! This week, the cherubs had an extra challenge. They connected all their towers, counted and decided which one had more cubes and which had less. If students had trouble counting that high, they compared the 2 towers by standing them up next to each other and comparing which one was more or less and by how many!
- Pumpkin Seed Counting – Similar to last week’s mini ten frame book, students used star stickers to represent each number in their book. Lastly, they received practice tracing each number!
- Fill the Cup – In this new partner game, the mathematicians picked a cup they wanted to work with: big or medium. Next, taking turns, each cherub rolled a die and filled the cup with that many cubes. The partners continued until one of the cups was filled up to the top! Next, each person connected his/her cubes to make two individual trains. Finally, after lining the trains up, side by side, the partners used buddy lines to determine which train was longer and by how much! Terrific job, boys and girls!
- Sorting Colors – The children picked a tub containing differing amounts of colored squares. They sorted the squares by color, counted how many of each there were, then recorded their answers on their recording sheets.
- Grow and Shrink on Ten Frames – In a small group, a teacher asked the students to show a certain number on our ten frame manipulatives. Next, the teacher told the students to either add (grow) or subtract (shrink) to a new number. The students then discussed how many they had to add or take away to obtain that number, and they pointed out the different configurations that made the same number.
- Build a Staircase –This week, this fan favorite got a bit trickier! Instead of working with dot dice, the boys and girls used number dice. In this manner, they practiced their number recognition. Working with a partner, the boys and girls of Room #7 took turns rolling a die. They then stacked cubes together to represent that number. Once the partners finished building their staircases (1-6), they took turns rolling the die to disassemble them!!
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!
Wowza! Read to Self is going so well! The boys and girls have been concentrating on building their stamina, and they are up to 8 whole minutes of reading the words, reading the pictures, and retelling their stories without stopping! What impressive work!
During Superflex this week, Room #7 talked a lot about emotions and how each feeling looks different on our faces. After reading, All About Faces by La Zoo, the cherubs practiced making different faces and having each other guess what the other was feeling. Next, each person drew various faces: happy, sad, angry, surprised, and a kids’ choice. It’s important work for our kiddos to know both how to express themselves as well as how to read the feelings of their peers and adults. Moreover, this activity was super fun and the boys and girls truly enjoyed every minute!
Have a great weekend, everyone!