47 Days of School!

Theme
Our studies of Washington state would not be complete without a unit on salmon!  We've had lots of fun learning about the life cycle of salmon, even though many of us felt pretty sad about the fact that baby salmon (otherwise known as alevin) never get to meet their parents.  We created life cycle games, used puppets to demonstrate the life cycle and acted out the life cycle pretending we were salmon!  It was hard work swimming upstream, especially since we were no longer eating!  Perhaps if asked your child will give you a special performance! This coming week we will be creating some salmon inspired art and will actually get the opportunity to see spawning salmon first hand on our field trip to kennedy creek on Friday!

On Thursday, we had a fellow come from Killer Whale Tales to teach us all about Orcas!  Jeff was AMAZING (he completely captivated all three classes for a total of 2 hours!)!  We learned about the work he does and about the Resident Pods that live in the Puget Sound.  Did you know that Orcas spend their lives living with their moms?  Or that the resident Orcas only eat Chinook Salmon?  Be sure to ask your child what he or she remembers from the presentation!  Jeff is conducting research about things we do at home that can make a difference in helping the Orcas.  He left surveys for each family to fill out as best they can.  When returned each child will receive more Orca trading cards! (5 extra cards for each child that returns their survey and if everyone returns their survey each child will get 10 extra trading cards!!!!)  Please return these as soon as possible!  After the Orca presentation we practiced following step by step instructions to draw our own Orcas!  Be sure to check these out by the door!

Math
Our current studies are focusing on counting, developing number sense, and even place value for some.  This week we've been comparing numbers and putting them in order from least to most.  We learned a game called compare that can be played at home...remember the card game War?  It's very similar, but with a new name and without the competition piece of collecting your opponents cards!  This can be played with a regular set of cards minus the face cards.  Each player turns over a card and the player with the larger card says ME!  After each round cards are placed in a discard pile.  Play continues until all cards are used.  For the next round the player with the smaller card says ME!  This helps in the recognition of numbers and also in grouping images together in our mind as we count the pictures on the card.  For students ready for a SUPER CHALLENGE turn over 2 cards and read them together as a 2 digit number.  Have fun!

Language Arts
Writing Workshop continues as a time looked forward to!  Everyone is growing as a writer!  For some that means now writing their own name...for others it means incorporating simple sight words...for others it means sounding out the beginning and ending sounds of the words they are writing...and for others it means starting to incorporate long vowel patterns into their writing!  In phonics groups some continue to focus on the beginning consonant sounds, others on beginning digraphs like sh, ch and th and others on beginning blends.  If you would like to know specifically what your child is working on please feel free to ask!  We are playing alphabet BINGO again, but this time we are given a word and we have to look for the letter it starts with!  If you are inspired check out a BINGO game and try this version at home!  We have also begun reading groups!  Everyone now has at least 2 books that they can read!  Perhaps you might like to have your child read to you some morning?!  Thank you so much parent volunteers!

Baby Vowels, Doubles +1, and Pumpkins!

Can you believe we have had over 30 days of school?!  We have been so busy and have learned and grown so much together!  It feels great to be solid in our routines as we flow through our day.  Our time together is always so sweet!

Math
We continue working on our math facts and practicing different strategies to help us solve addition equations.  For example, if we know our 10 + __ really well, then 9 + ___ is just one less.  Or, if we know our doubles, 4 + 4 then 5 +4 is just one more.  Some are working on adding double digits and adding the ones before adding up the tens (which is a tricky habit to get into sometimes, since when we count, we add up our big 10s and then add on the little ones!).  We have been playing memory games, BINGO, making fact books, dice games, and working on our addition packets to help us strengthen these skills.

Language
In centers, we are working on our vowel key and have begun with the "baby" vowels (short vowels).  They are babies and make baby sounds (don't know how to say their name yet!) and always need a babysitter.  We went through our consonant sound board and found all the really good babysitters, those that sometimes have trouble, and those that should never ever babysit(!!).  Our time with the short vowels is focused on playing with different word families.  Some put beginning consonants in front of chunks (like __op) and other put in consonant blends to help find the words that belong in the family. This last week we focused on "o" and this week we will made flip books, will do our first word/sound sorts this week and play other word games that help us recognize sounds we hear at the beginning or ending of a word to make new words.

Special Guest
We had a wonderful student from Evergreen visit to share a few fun science experiments with us. We tested for sugar content in different drinks, played with acids and bases, and checked out how well we wash our hands (a great reminder to really do a thorough job!)

Theme
We had fun creating our own basic map of Washington (including major mountain ranges, largest rivers, big cities) the week before last.  This past week, we learned a few interesting fact about our state.  Ask your child if they know the state fruit, bird, insect, fish, vegetable, tree or flower. Or, what is our state's nickname or some of our state's industry (what we sell).

Art
Look for our art decorating the walls at Samhain!

Friday Workshops

Field Trip
Lattin's continues to be a favorite field trip!

We Love Bike Week!

The sounds of bike bells and horns filled the air last week during bike week and it was such a wonderful week!  We are so grateful for the rain holding off so we could use all our recess time outside on our bikes.  It is such a joy to watch our kids grow in their confidence on their bikes and support one another as they learn to ride. 

Math
In math, we have been working on strengthening our understanding of numbers and place value.  We are spending time here to help us build a strong foundation in number sense that will help us work with bigger numbers and utilize different strategies when solving addition/subtraction problems.  We also continue to work on our addition math facts.  Some are working on adding three numbers together and developing strategies to do this process easily (like finding two number that make ten, finding two number we already easily know the answer to, or adding smaller numbers onto a bigger number). 

Today, we had a special guest visiting our class and Brett's class.  Stephen brought in all sorts of math puzzles and building supplies that were super fun and really worked our brains!  I was so amazed watching the kids put together puzzles that I was still trying to figure out!

Language
Writing workshop continues to be a favorite.  We are adding words to our word wall to help us spell those common and sometime not so phonetic words.  Our spelling lists will be going home next week which will include these great words.

We have been working on an animal alliteration book during literacy centers.  The kids have been having fun creating artwork and sentences such as, "The leaping lizards like licorice lollipops." and "The zebras zip zucchini."  Fun!  We are also working on our lowercase letters and learning the strokes that are helpful for fluid writing.  Magic C got to sing her rap today about a, d, g, o, and q - ah yay!

We having begun meeting in our reading groups and reading together.  The books we read go into a "Fluency Bag" that the kids then get to pull from to help gain fluency in their reading. 

Buddy reading has begun!!  Most of the kids are in groups of three with one older and one younger buddy.  They take turns reading a book to the younger friend.  They LOVE buddy reading and look forward to it and get so excited when it is time to get their buddies.  I'll post pictures of this sweetness next week!

Theme
We have officially begun our theme!!!  Looking at the globe and a map of the world was a good start for us and we learned where the seven continents are located.  Ask your child if they remember the "Continents" song and the body actions!  We then looked at North America and the United States.  We had fun sharing the puzzle pieces of a U.S. puzzle and taking turns putting in the states that we each had.  Next, we will focus our attention on Washington state.

Art
Be sure to check out our cool spider webs!  We played with blending colors with chalk pastels.  We also learned a bit about spiders and just how exactly they make the silk thread to make their webs.  Ask you child how spiders do it!

Friday Workshops
I love the creativity the children bring with them for Friday Workshops.  It also warms my heart to witness the sweet, caring ways they teach their friends and the special attention they give their younger friends.  Here are a few shots from last week's workshops.

 See you all at conferences!  I'm looking forward to connecting with each of you!