December 3rd-7th

Happy Friday! It is hard to believe that it is December! ⛄ I love this month with the kids because of all of the holiday excitement and fun.  You can find a review of our week below.

December 19th: Pajama Day
December 20th - January 2nd: No school...Winter Break
January 17th 10:00 AM: American Heroes Play

Math:
As we finish our third week of learning about place value, the students are really beginning to have an understanding of this concept.  It can be a challenging one because it is such an abstract concept.  The students learned a new place value game this week that they played with a partner.  Each student had a bag of tens (on ten frames) and a bag of ones (on ten frames).  One student would choose a number between 1-109 and would write it down on a whiteboard.  The other student had to build the number using their bag of tens and ones.  This required them to break down the number in their mind into tens and ones and then create it.  They loved this game and played for 45 minutes straight one day!  This game will go into our math workshop tubs next week where they can go and play with a partner.

Literacy:
During our reader's workshop this week, we learned that good readers "try, try, try again" when reading.  We learned that when you get to a tricky word, don't just try one thing!  Sometimes one strategy will work on one word but not another.  Below are the six strategies we learned.  These strategies work for all students no matter their reading level.
1. Read the word left to right
2. Can the pictures help me?
3. Does it make sense?
4. Does it look right?
5. Does it sound right?
6. Do I know any parts of the word?

We also continued our writer's workshop time learning about "how-to" books and the students blew me away with their writing! I challenged them to take their book home and read it to their parents so maybe some of you have seen these. :) It has been fun seeing what they want to teach others how to do in their writing books.

Thematic:
The American heroes that we studied this week were Neil Armstrong and Mae Jemison.  We learned about outer space, the moon, the phases of the moon, astronauts, and space shuttles.  We practiced our song about Neil Armstrong and they are doing great!  Students learned about the phases of the moon by using Oreos and toothpicks (for carving), they created their own astronaut helmets they will wear in the play, they wrote an application to be an astronaut, and they solved math problems that had to do with outer space.  Next week we move onto Helen Keller.

Sci-Fri:
HUGE shoutout to Sue Sink for our amazing Sci-Fri today!  The students learned about how animals prepare for winter and they each got to make a birdfeeder using cones, sunbutter, birdseed, and yarn.  They loved this activity and learning about animal habitats and preparations as we move into the winter months.  We need more parents to volunteer for Sci-Fri on Friday afternoons! This is a great way to get involved in our classroom and the kids love it.  The science experiment does not have to be anything crazy and I am always happy to send you ideas.

Have a great weekend! I guess we will see what winter weather comes our way. 😁⛄
Love,
Mrs. James