Apples, Salmon and Orcras, Oh My!

It has been such a beautiful Autumn!  One of the many things that I appreciate during this time of year is the sweet music of the children singing our Autumn songs.  We have been singing twice a week with our younger friends and helping them learn the words.  We are now also singing once a week with our older friends.  Plan on hearing a concert of our favorite songs in December!

Math

We continue our work with addition facts, adding three or four numbers, or adding double digits through games and practice sheets.  Block It is a fun game that involves giving the pattern blocks value. Each time a block is added, the child gets to add up the value of all the blocks that it is touching.  Getting the biggest number possible is the goal, so it is fun to use some strategy.

 Block It

We have also begun working with counting by 5s.  We have been counting our number of days of school by 5s, passing our little pumpkin in our circle and counting by 5s as fast as we can, and playing games like the Swiper game.  To play, a child puts out all the cards from 5 to 100 in order by 5s.  Another child swipes a card but moves the other cards together so there isn't a hole giving away the missing card. The other child (who wasn't looking) needs to figure out what card was taken. 

 5s Swiper Game

We are now playing with recording and adding multiply groups of 5.  It has been fun to step into the world of multiplication!  We have played Tic-Tac-Toe with a Twist and Circles and Stars. Both give us experience in counting by 5s to solve multiplying situations.  For example, for 3x5 a child will think/say that it is three groups of 5 so 5, 10, 15...15 is the answer!

This week, now that we can all count by 5s so well, we will begin looking at the clock and learning how to read the time. Learning to read the clock takes time and lots of practice.  Having a analog clock at home or a watch is a great way to get more practice.   FUN!

Literacy
We continue with our study of baby vowels with "u" being our focus this week.  We are becoming pros at word sorts and learning other games to help us read and spell word families.  This week we learned "Shake a Sound" which involves shaking a carton that determines a rime (12 options, for example, _unk, _ump, _ock...) and the child then uses their sound board of beginning consonants and blends to determines what onset will create a word.

Joann (John's mom) has been a wonderful helper on Mondays during our literacy centers.  She is currently running a center that helps the children work with word families and changing beginning or ending sounds to great new words.  Thank you so much for your help, Joann!

I hope you have been enjoying the word sort practice at home as well as the beginning of our spelling!  The "Blind Sort" is a fun way to practice and learn the spelling patterns we are focusing on in class. For the time being, our spelling list will continue to focus on sight words or high frequency words.

In Writing Workshop, we are all making sure to put spaces between our words,  We have begun building our writing tool kits to help us with our writing.  First tool, a "Space Girl/Boy" who helps remind us to put nice space between our words (they need some space!!).  The kids have really enjoyed using the tool.  I love it when they use it and pull it out for writing times even when it's not Writing Workshop!

Word Sorts

Theme
We are wrapping up our time in Washington.  After learning that our state fruit is the apple, we just had to have an apple feast!  I gathered up as many different varieties of apples I could find and we enjoyed a taste-testing session of the different varieties.  Yum!

Washington Apple Tasting 

Living in the Puget Sound, a look at Washington would not be complete without a closer look at salmon and Orcas.  We have learned about the life cycle of the salmon (everyone was especially drawn to the little alevin with their big "yolk" bellies) and the 4 C's salmon must have to survive.  See if your child remembers them (clean water, cool water, clear water, and consistent water). 

We had to know a bit about Orcas because who knows, we might see a pod as we travel out the Puget Sound and into the Pacific Ocean!  We are prepared with I.D. cards and a bit of knowledge, thanks to our friends at Killer Whale Tales.

We are leaving for Ecuador THIS week!!

Art
We are enjoying the colors autumn brings us and have been incorporating them into our artwork.  Check out our beautiful fall leaves we created with oil pastels.


Field Trips and Special Guests
At the end of October, we were invited to dig up all the potatoes in the garden for donation to the food bank.  Wow!  It was like digging for treasure!  The kids had so much fun finding big potatoes, small, potatoes, and every other shaped potato.  Yay, potatoes!

Potatoes!

Last week, I invited Killer Whale Tales for a visit to share their work and study of the resident Orca pods.  I was sad to miss out that day, but I have enjoyed hearing all about it from the kids.  I hope they shared it all with you, too!