Friday, January 29th
Claire
Owen
Important Dates
Friday, January 29th - Swimming in the morning
Thursday, February 4th - Field trip to Seattle
Friday, February 12th - Valentine's Day party
February 15th-19th - No School
Swimming!
We are having so much fun swimming on Fridays! This last week I stayed out of the pool and I had a wonderful time watching the children and observing all of their play and interactions. There are children practicing their jumps into the pool or tricks like standing on their hands or doing somersaults. Some are playing with water toys or practicing diving, floating, or swimming. Others continue their imaginative play as seals, dolphins, or sharks. What I enjoyed most was watching the older children play with the youngers by giving them rides on their backs around the pool or pulling them around while the youngers practiced kicking their legs. These sweet moments gives me a deep appreciation for our school's commitment to multi-age experiences and the lessons everyone receives, be it learning how to do something, asking for support from a friend, or the joy of helping/teaching/giving to another.
Math
We continue playing math games that help us practice our multiplication. One game we played this week was "Concentration." This game is much like Memory in that we needed to match up equations with the answer while remembering what cards we already turned over and where they were!
We have begun looking at multiplication geometrically by creating rectangles on grid paper (our floor tiles). For example, when playing "Floor Tiles" we roll a die and that is how many rows our tile will be. We roll again and this how many squares will be in each of our rows. If I rolled a three and then a two, I would create a rectangle that is three rows high and contain two squares across (3 x 2) which covers 6 squares. Working with grids and thinking about multiplication geometrically helps the children create another picture in their mind of multiplication. We will continue this work next week with a special guest! Hmmmmm...I wonder who that could be? Hint: She smells of gumdrops and Jeriann always hides from her!
Look in our room for our beautiful multiplication designs! We used multiplies and our eye for patterns to create these amazing works of art.
We have begun looking at multiplication geometrically by creating rectangles on grid paper (our floor tiles). For example, when playing "Floor Tiles" we roll a die and that is how many rows our tile will be. We roll again and this how many squares will be in each of our rows. If I rolled a three and then a two, I would create a rectangle that is three rows high and contain two squares across (3 x 2) which covers 6 squares. Working with grids and thinking about multiplication geometrically helps the children create another picture in their mind of multiplication. We will continue this work next week with a special guest! Hmmmmm...I wonder who that could be? Hint: She smells of gumdrops and Jeriann always hides from her!
Look in our room for our beautiful multiplication designs! We used multiplies and our eye for patterns to create these amazing works of art.
Language
We began our week with words sorts. Some worked on beginning blends like "br, cr, gr, and tr" while some practiced the ending sound "dge, ge." Others worked on "ie, ee" and some practiced "air, are." Our wonderful word sorts allow the children to practice sounds and spelling patterns that are developmentally appropriate for where they are as a learner. At least half of your child's spelling words for the week come from the word sorts.
Some children began book clubs this week. One group is reading The Cat Who Wished to be a Man. We are all enjoying the book immensely which is making it a bit of a challenge for us to keep our pinkie promise to not read past our agreed amount (although we are keeping our promise)! We have read the first five chapters independently and together practiced writing short summaries and predictions in our book club folders. We also practiced thinking of questions that require deeper thinking and allow us to synthesize, evaluate, or investigate the text further. Next week we will prepare this work independently before we meet and then share and discuss with the group. We will practice taking notes on the main characters, secondary characters, setting, and theme.
Another group began reading Horrible Harry and the Ant Invasion. We are reading this book aloud to one another and sharing our thoughts and question verbally. Others continue to practice reading with our readers like Aesop's Fables and reading without picture clues.
***There is a new addition to homework this week! We will begin our literature responses in February. All the details are in your child's homework binder.***
Some children began book clubs this week. One group is reading The Cat Who Wished to be a Man. We are all enjoying the book immensely which is making it a bit of a challenge for us to keep our pinkie promise to not read past our agreed amount (although we are keeping our promise)! We have read the first five chapters independently and together practiced writing short summaries and predictions in our book club folders. We also practiced thinking of questions that require deeper thinking and allow us to synthesize, evaluate, or investigate the text further. Next week we will prepare this work independently before we meet and then share and discuss with the group. We will practice taking notes on the main characters, secondary characters, setting, and theme.
Another group began reading Horrible Harry and the Ant Invasion. We are reading this book aloud to one another and sharing our thoughts and question verbally. Others continue to practice reading with our readers like Aesop's Fables and reading without picture clues.
***There is a new addition to homework this week! We will begin our literature responses in February. All the details are in your child's homework binder.***
Theme
Goodbye space and hello rainforests! We are all VERY excited about rainforests. The list of topics we are interested in learning about include tigers, cocoa pods, poisonous frogs, plants, peoples of the rainforest, weather, fruits, tigers, birds, sloths.....the list goes on and on!
We will now answer to the the name of Shocking Sugar Gliders. I had no idea what a sugar glider was (I thought it was an insect!) until the children showed me this cute picture.
We will now answer to the the name of Shocking Sugar Gliders. I had no idea what a sugar glider was (I thought it was an insect!) until the children showed me this cute picture.
Shockingly cute!
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