We had a great 4-day week! On Tuesday, we discussed why we had the holiday on Monday and learned more about Dr. Maritn Luther King, Jr. We read a book about the skin we live in and learned that it is what is on the inside that is most important and what makes each of us special. We also wrote about a dream we had for our world. The kids thought of a lot of wonderful things like no litter, being nice to animals, and nobody using mean words.
Wednesday, the kids had a lot of fun making snowmen with our special snowman paint! You can find the recipe and instructions HERE if you would like to do more painting at home.
They got to add a candy corn nose, raisin eyes and a raisin mouth, pretzel stick arms, and a fabric scarf. Later that day, we wrote about what we would eat, play, be afraid of, live, wear, and like if we were snowmen. I am hoping we have time to glue our writing papers on our snowmen tomorrow, so they can come home and be displayed! They turned out really great!
For center time this week, we had a lot of fun snow themed centers. The kids got to count snowmen and record their answers using cotton balls.
They cut out and sorted words that started with the "s" sound.
We learned a poem this week called "The Chubby Little Snowman." It is about a snowman who loses his nose to a hungry rabbit. I put the poem in the pocket chart with other foods and animals to choose from and the kids enjoyed making their own versions of the poem.
Since we have been working on teen numbers, they also got practice making teen numbers by adding 10 plus another number and showing it in ten frames with marshmallows.
We also filled in a Venn diagram and compared people and snowmen and figured out what was the same and different about them. We learned we have many similarities with snowmen!
In math, we have been working hard on teen numbers again. We have been finding many ways to represent them. The main goal is to help the kids understand that they are 10, plus some ones. This concept will be built upon in first grade when they will learn more about place value.
Here we are hard at work with our clipboards in our math circle recording pictures of teen numbers!
This week we focused on learning more about the TH sound. I like to teach the kids that they get to stick their tongues out between their teeth and either blow or buzz to make the sound. It says both sounds, (i.e. thumb and then). We made special "thinking thumbs" and wore them around the room while we hunted for and recorded words that started with TH.
The kids have been doing a great job recognizing and remembering all of the digraphs we have learned so far!
Ivory's mom came again this week and taught us about a great artist named Winslow Homer. She also taught us about perspective in art and how to use watercolors to make a wash or to paint dark.
Here is the painting the kids recreated! It is called Palm Tree,
Nassau.
The kids did a wonderful job with their paintings and had a great time working with the paint.
We had a really great week learning about community helpers! Wednesday was our big community helpers day. We all dressed up as our favorite kind of community helper and had a fun day together!
Burke's mom came in and helped us learn more about what happens at a dental office.
She explained to the kids what happens when you go to the dentist and also brought everyone a new toothbrush!
John and his dad helped us learn about firefighting. They showed us their cool gear and taught us more about fire saftey.
He also brought fire badge stickers, coloring books, and everyone got their own fire hat! It was so exciting!
Tate's dad, who is an orthopedic surgeon, told us more about his job and how he helps fix people's bones. The kids were pretty impressed by his tools! He also showed us what kind of protective clothes a doctor has to wear to keep germs away from patients.
Michael's dad told us what a pharmacist does and also brought some different clothes they wear. He went over how to be safe with medicine and pills. It was so great to have so many parents come in and talk about their jobs! Thank you!!
For centers that day, we read big books about communities and the people in them.
We made our own little books about community helpers. The kids had to read a clue and then write who the community helper was.
They also sorted different objects by which job they belonged to.
And we hunted around the room for community helper jobs and practiced writing them during a write around the room center.
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This week we focused on learning the CH sound. We first talked about some words that had the CH sound at the beginning or end of the word. Then I told the kids I had something that could be eaten that started with the CH sound, hidden somewhere in the room. I had them guess what it could be. They came up with things like chocolate, cherries, Cheetos, chips, cheese, and more. Next, we made a CHoo, CHoo train and CHugged around the room while making the CH sound. When we got to my desk, where I have a little fridge, we found chocolate pudding!
The kids all got to finger paint in the chocolate pudding and practiced writing CH in it. Hopefully they won't forget that sound now! :)
After washing our hands, the kids practiced writing things that started with CH on their papers.
We practiced reading words with a CH sound in them during centers this week as well.
In math, we have been working on making "partners" with numbers. I gave the kids a pipe cleaner and had them put a certain number of beads on it, like 6. We practiced making partners of that number with our beads, by putting some on one side of the pipe cleaner and the rest on the other. For example, they had 0+6, 1+5, 2+4, 3+3, 4+2, 5+1, and 6+0. The kids were noticing patterns and saw that it didn't matter what order the numbers were in to add them up.
After practicing with the beads, we worked on doing it on paper. This is a skill we will continue to develop and work with the rest of the year!
We are also working on learning to count by 10's to 100. Here is a fun song/video you can have your child practice at home with:
We
are still working with teen numbers and will continue to do so the rest
of the year. We had a fun painting center and painted gumballs in
gumball machines!
After testing the kids on identifying their letters last week, I noticed a lot of them were still getting b and d confused. This is perfectly normal at this age, but I am going to try my best to get them remembering which way they go! We played this fun pocket chart game and sorted words with b's and d's. I have taught the kids that b goes "bounce down and bubble" and d goes "donut, draw up, draw down."
The kids had a fun time playing a sight word and letter game with this snow hat! They picked out a card with a word wall word or letter on it. If they could read the word or say the sound the letter made, they got to keep their card. But if they pulled out a mitten card that said, "Brrr!", they had to put all of their cards back in the hat. It is something you could easily do at home with the word wall flashcards I sent home during parent teacher conferences! :)
We also did this fun snowball fight song during music time this week. It is super catchy and the kids have LOVED it:
In computers, we worked on the sh and ch sounds that we have learned. Your child can play these games at home HERE!
Ivory was our star student this week and everyone laughed when she brought out her whoopee cushion to show the class!
We have had a busy week and a half since coming back from Christmas break. The kids have been learning so much and I am excited to get started on the second half of the year.
Last week, we made some fun snowmen for our hallway by cutting out circles and adding details.
The best part was painting snowflakes over the top using bubble wrap when we were all done.
Look how cute they turned out! We have so many wonderful artists in our class.
This week, we read the story, "The Mitten" by Jan Brett. Your child can watch the online version of the story if they would like to here:
*****
We talked about the "-it" word family this week after discussing the mitten that was knitted and how the animals all fit inside.
We used our magnifying glasses to hunt for words with the -it chunk in them.
We also wrote about what could fit inside a really big mitten. Some of their answers included elephants, whales, volcanoes, bears, and trees.
I was horrible at remembering to take pictures during centers this week, but we had lots of fun mitten centers to go along with the story. Here is one group retelling the story using stick puppets and a large mitten on the floor.
We also scooped out "snowballs" and put them on a mitten counting mat and recorded how many snowballs we caught.
We also learned the "sh" sound this week. We read a book called "Sheep on a Ship" and then used the iPad to project it onto our screen so we could hunt for the sh sound with our huge fly swatter that has a hole cut out of the middle.
Next we made sharks out of envelopes and hunted around the room for fish that had words that started with "sh." Michael was wearing the perfect shirt for the day!
On Wednesday, we talked about day and night. We learned that the Earth's rotation makes day and night happen. We discussed the differences between day and night and what you can see during the day and night.
After learning more about day and night, we read a fun story called "Snowmen at Night." Your child can listen to it again here:
We wrote what we think snowmen like to do during the day and during the night. The kids were so creative and had a lot of fun using their imaginations.
Next we sorted things we can see in the sky during the day and things we can see at night.
Of course we had to eat some "snowballs" while getting our work done. :)
For math practice this week, we practiced counting teen numbers using "ice crystals" on snowflakes.
We used pattern blocks to design our own snowflakes.
We practiced addition by putting buttons on snowmen and adding up how many buttons we had altogether.
And we used our "snowballs" again to cover up addition facts on a snowman board.
Thursday we had a special treat and attended an assembly put on by Ballet West. We got to learn about ballet and watch a short version of the Nutcracker. The kids all really enjoyed it!
After we were done with the assembly, we worked on a new class big book called "A Winter's Day." Groups of 3 students worked together to illustrate their page. The book takes us through a winter day all the way to a winter night. It will be up in our room for the kids to read this month!
Friday was PE and we had fun with hula hoops! We had some free exploration time with them first.
Then we played some other games with them. The kids enjoyed jumping like frogs on their lily-pads across the gym.
In computers, we read online stories and designed our own snowmen. You can do that at home HERE!
We sang happy 6th birthday to Tate and enjoyed her Oreos that she brought to share with the class!
And Brynley was our star student and told us all about her silly baby brother that makes her laugh!
Last week, we made some fun snowmen for our hallway by cutting out circles and adding details.
The best part was painting snowflakes over the top using bubble wrap when we were all done. 
Look how cute they turned out! We have so many wonderful artists in our class.
This week, we read the story, "The Mitten" by Jan Brett. Your child can watch the online version of the story if they would like to here:
