Welcome Winter!

Some new math concepts:

  

Ms. Elizabeth taught us how to play the dreidel game.  

Afterwards we read:

December birthday kids!  

Children are invited to bring a special book from home that I read to the class on their birthdays.

We wrapped up our poetry unit.  

Check their Seesaw accounts to enjoy them reading their published poems!

. 

  

. 

. 

Proud poets with their packets of poems!

Snap word hunt game with Ms. Liz...

Fun in the Snow!!

. 

During word study we are learning about adding a suffix s to a baseword to make them plural.  The suffix s can make the sound /s/ or /z/.  Learning to underline the baseword helps them focus on spelling the basewords correctly before adding the suffix s.  Children were also introduced to consonant blends. Unlike a digraph that is two consonants working together to make one side (th), consonant blends are two or more constants side by side in a word that each make their own sound.   In the word blend for example, there is a consonant blend (bl) at the beginning of the word and at the end (nd). 

The kids have been enjoying  puzzles.  If you have any to donate we would greatly appreciate it!

We finished the second book of the My Father's Dragon series.  We will read the third book after break.

We will be welcoming a new student to our classroom when we return from break.  

The students are very excited!

Have a wonderful winter break!!

 

Poetry and more!

For the month of December we are writing and reading poetry.

Here is how we rolled out poetry in writing class...

I read them the book Puddles by Jonathan London without showing them the pictures.  This book is rich with descriptive language.  I stopped four different times in the book and challenged the students to draw what they imagined just from the words.  It was fun to see how they compared to the actual illustrations in the book. 

. 

. 

The next day we started to write poetry.  We started off creating a list of what they already know about poetry. 

Our first attempt at writing our own poems were five sense poems.  This was a hard writing session.  We often talk about how the first time we do anything it can be hard but it gets easier with practice and time. 

The next day our new routines became established.  I introduce them to a type of poetry or poetic technique.  I read them a few mentor poems or books.  We visualize and then write!  It has taken off and I cannot wait until you get these poems before the winter break!

As you can she students were already writing examples of our next technique..

We followed this up by writing a simile about ourselves to create a class book inspired by I'm as Quick as A Cricket.  

. 

Every poet has had a chance to read a poem to the class-they love this!  And the poems are so good!!!

We start reading workshop by adding a poem to their poetry journals.  We discuss what type of poem it is or what technique it has in it before adding it.  Then we are reading in small groups with Ms. Lubic, reading independently or reading with a partner.  

Michelle and I are slowly rolling out a new reading platform called Epic.  For now we will only be using it at school. It was neat to see the variety of book topics they were exploring!

In word study we have been practicing the glued sounds -all, -am, -an.  We teach these sounds as a chunk.  The /a/ in these chunks does not do not say the short a sound.  Our new snap words are:

have, from, do, does

 

In math we are further exploring doubles facts.  "Doubles Facts Plus or Minus One" is a new important concept.  We use visual models and games to strengthen concepts. We are also always working to solidify our make ten facts.

. 

We are learning about 3D shapes too!

. 

Tuesday Diversity Read Aloud-one week we read 

and then dressed ourselves.

. 

The next week we watched Todd Parr read us his book It's Okay to Be Different.  

Click here to watch it at home.

 

Explore time snapshots!

Our new read aloud series: