Week Seven: September 25th-29th

Happy Friday!  I hope you all had a great week.  I can't believe it is almost October!  We have so many fun activities in October that we are excited for! Be sure to mark your calendar for the following dates:
October 4th: Walk to School Day! Meet at the Roosevelt Wilson Park playground at 7:30 and walk to school with other classmates!

October 11th 10:00 AM Fairy Tale Play: Come and see our fairy tale play about the 3 Little Pigs, the 3 Bears, and the 3 Billy Goats Gruff!  This will be in our classroom with refreshments to follow.
October 12th and 13th: No school....Optional Parent Conferences
October 18th Field Trip to Aw Shucks Farm: Come on our first field trip with us to the farm!  More information to come about chaperones.  We are checking on how many chaperones we can have attend.  If you are a chaperone, you will need to drive yourself and your child and meet us at Aw Shucks Farm because of limited space on the bus.  
October 19th: CSD Festival and Kickball Tournament 4:00-8:00 PM

October 24th 1:00 PM Pumpkin Carving with Dad: Students will bring their own pumpkin and get to carve it!  We love for Dad's to come to this but it is totally okay if you can't!  If Dad cannot come, a grandfather, uncle, mom, or aunt is welcome to come! Please bring your own carving tools.

October 31st Parade of Fiction 8:30/8:45 AM: Students get to dress up as their favorite fictional book character!  Children will need to have the book (his/her character is from) with them to carry in the parade.  No scary costumes and no weapons of any kind (guns, swords, knives, bow and arrow, etc.)  

Math Workshop:

       

        
This week in math we continued to focus on the numbers 11-20 and also learned about "counting on."  Counting on is when you start counting at a number other than zero.  This is such an important skill that will help them when learning to add numbers!  We practiced this by using dominos.  The student would count the dots on one side of the domino and then put that number in their head.  They would then "count on" the amount of dots on the other side of the domino.  For example, a domino has 5 dots on one side and 3 dots on the other side.  They would count the 5 dots and put that in their head and then "count on" the other dots and say "6, 7, 8."  Dominos are a GREAT and easy way to practice this skill at home!  We used dominos that added all the way up to 20 to differentiate for the various levels in our classroom.

Reader's Workshop:

 

This week in reader's workshop, we focused on letter identification, letter sounds, matching upper case and lower case letters, writing letters, and sight words.  As students were rotating through the different centers, I was pulling small groups to work with children on letters, sounds, or reading.   I typically introduce one or two new activities into our centers each week.  Lila was our Marvelous Me for this week and we learned all about her and how to write her name!  Above are the activities that we did to practice. 

Thematic Centers:

We finished learning about the Three Billy Goats Gruff this week and finished up the centers from last week including marshmallow bridge building, torn paper trolls, troll grass heads, and a mini book!  We have also been practicing our play during this time and the kids are doing great! They are very excited to share it with you. :)

Science:

Kerri Barnett, a previous mom of a student in my class, volunteered to do our Sci-Fri this week!  She is going to do an experiment on different materials dissolving and will tie it into Goldilocks and the 3 Bears and their porridge. :) 

Love,
Mrs. James