I cannot wait to tell you about our construction site transformation we had this week! It was awesome! What better way to blend the study of a community helpers with our math and reading concepts! In math students participated in: Laying Down Ten Frame Bricks- Building numbers using 10 frames. Students will use Cheez-itz as blocks to fill in ten frames for numbers up to 20. Students will realize that teen numbers are a group of ten and a certain amount of ones. Building Teen Number Towers- Students will take the teen number cards and using the unifix cubes build a structure that is as tall as the number. They should realize teen numbers are a group of ten and a certain amount of ones. When they are done they should sort and order the towers. Tool count and wet cement writing- Count the amount of screws and write the amount of screws with play-dough to practice forming numbers to 20. Students should remember not to reverse the numbers and remember that teen numbers begin with a 1 and also that 20 is a 2 and a 0 (tricky for some). In ELA/reading the students participated in: Paving Roads and Blending Sounds- Use the short a word family cards to help students learn how to blend words together. Use a small bulldozer to roll across the road and pronounce each sound. Wet cement- students will practice writing short a family words by writing the words with play-dough using a multi-sensory approach Building words- Students will build different words within the short a word family using the magnetic letters and record the words on the recording sheet provided. The students had such an awesome time this week experiencing hands-on community helper adventures!!! At science lab the students got to listen to stethoscopes like doctors, spray down a "burning building" like a firefighter, and investigate fingerprints like the police!!! It was AWESOME!
Speaking of our community helpers unit please remember that the Community Project is due on October 4th: 1. Talk with your child about the different buildings that are found in a community ie. Post Office, Grocery Store, and Police Station and decide which building your student wants to create. 2. Collect objects from home to help create their building. Some items might include a shoebox for the base, cotton balls, cloth, small boxes, toilet paper rolls, etc. (Please do not go buy items, use what you have at home.) Students are welcome to use figurines and toy cars as a part of their building.
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Today was STEM day! In groups, the students built a maze for their marble. They tested their marble maze, making sure that the marble made it from start to finish. We used: ●Cardboard boxes ●Pipe cleaners ●Play Dough ●Popsicle Sticks ●Marbles ●Tape We asked inquiry questions that guided us through the planning and engineering process: -What would happen if you… -What might you try instead? -What will you do next? -What materials work best? -What are some different things you could try? A couple reminders: -Reading Logs are due on Mondays and I send a new one home on Mondays in the daily folders. -Tuesday is our construction site classroom transformation. Students will engage in math, reading, and writing stations BUILDING their knowledge (: This week we:
Worked on counting forward from a number. When counting on, we put a number in our head and then counted on. For example if I ask students to count on from the number 12, they will put 12 silently in their head and count 13, 14, 15, etc. We continued to work with numbers and representing them in different ways. We also worked on finding numbers that become before and after a number. In the next few weeks we will work on sorting, counting and ordering. The ordering part of this standard can be difficult which is why this standard appears in all of our math units. To practice, students can sort items at home by color, shape, or size, count how many items are in each group, and put the groups in order from least to greatest or greatest to least. Here is a great game for this: http://www.abcya.com/counting_sorting_comparing.htm At home, please make sure students are practicing counting to 100 by 1’s and 10’s every night, to 120 when they have mastered counting to 100, and practicing writing their numbers 0-20. (Fun ways of writing numbers can be with chalk outside, in sand or shaving cream, on a whiteboard, etc.) When students have mastered this, you can practice skip counting by 2, 3, 4, etc. and discuss odd and even numbers. - In writer’s workshop we are near the end of our first narrative unit of study. We will discuss how to edit a piece that we plan on sharing with the class (students will share in a writing celebration in the next few weeks). We will learn how writers re-read their stories and think about what they can do from everything they know about good writing to make their work the best it can be. We discussed how writers try to spell their words, they reread each word to make sure it looks right, then they may even need to change it to make it more readable. We reviewed “When we are done we have just begun” and how to write a TRUE story We have been focusing on adding more details to our pictures-not just drawing pictures that are floating in the middle of the page. We will also continue to work on incorporating how our characters felt and add speech bubbles to our pictures too. What you can do at home: have students practice sounding out words and writing down the sounds they hear on paper and draw pictures with details and label their pictures. You can also remind students that when writing, the first letter in a sentence is uppercase and the rest is lower case, there are finger spaces between words, and periods at the end of sentences. We will continue to work on this in class. - In reading, Students will continue reading fiction (old favorite storybooks) books from their book bins independently and with a partner and will also continue to read learn about the world books. We will focus on how “Readers Learn From Books, Too” and “We are Storybook Readers.” (Please see below). Our minilessons this past week have been about how we talk more and more like the characters, look at the pictures and words, etc. What you can do at home: Read every night like you are working with a partner (sit side by side, have a book in the middle, read back and forth, etc.) and ask your child questions about what she/he is reading about. For students who need to work on letters and letter sounds, you can have students find letters around the house and ask them what sounds they make. -In social studies, we have been talking about community helpers and how they are similar/different in other communities including other countries around the world. We learned that police officers in England called “Bobbies." (England is our country of study for International Day) We will continue to discuss students’ role as a citizen in their community and the different roles in a community. We will also continue to add the learner profile words (communicator, thinker, and principled) as well as key concepts (function, connection, and responsibility) to our daily vocabulary. What you can do at home: Discuss the following: Why is it important to be a good citizen? What is a community? What is a community helper? What role do I play in a community? In math we have been counting by 1’s to 100 and crossing the decade- going from 29 to 30, 59 to 60, etc. When students have mastered counting to 100 by 1’s and 10’s we will move on to counting to 120. Students will continue to work with ten frames. We will discuss recognizing the number on the ten frame without counting and also determining how to figure out how many more we need to make 10/20/30, etc. Below are some pictures of our crossing the decades crowns! Soon we will be working on sorting objects into groups by color, shape, or size. We will then work on counting how many are in each group and putting the groups in order from smallest to greatest or greatest to smallest. This is a standard students can practice at home. Here is a great game for this: http://www.abcya.com/counting_sorting_comparing.htm At home, please make sure students are practicing counting to 100 by 1’s and 10’s every night and practicing writing their numbers 0-20. (Fun ways of writing numbers can be with chalk outside, in sand or shaving cream, on a whiteboard, etc.) When students have mastered this, you can practice skip counting by 2, 3, 4, etc. and discuss odd and even numbers. Here are our math standards for this unit: MGSEK.CC.1. Count to 100 by ones and by tens. MGSE1.NBT.1 Count to 120, starting at any number less than 120. In this range, read and write numerals and represent a number of objects with a written numeral. MGSEK.CC.2. Count forward beginning from a given number within the known sequence (instead of having to begin at 1). MGSEK.CC.3. Write numbers from 0 to 20. Represent a number of objects with a written numeral 0-20 (with 0 representing a count of no objects). MGSEK.CC.4 Understand the relationship between numbers and quantities; connect counting to cardinality. a. When counting objects, say the number names in the standard order, pairing each object with one and only one number name and each number name with one and only one object. (one-to-one correspondence) b. Understand that the last number name said tells the number of objects counted (cardinality). The number of objects is the same regardless of their arrangement or the order in which they were counted. c. Understand that each successive number name refers to a quantity that is one larger. MGSEK.MD.3. Classify objects into given categories; count the numbers of objects in each category and sort the categories by count. - In writer’s workshop we continued our Lucy Calkins unit of study. We learned “When we are done we have just begun,” We talked about what we can add to our teaching piece (labels, words, details, etc). We will talk about how students can revise their teaching piece. Students will be put in pairs that they will work with in writing and reading. Partners will practice working together after I model-they will discuss things like asking questions, reading their pieces to each other, and giving suggestions to their partner about their writing. What you can do at home: have students practice sounding out words and writing down the sounds they hear on paper and draw pictures with details and label their pictures. You can also remind students that when writing, the first letter in a sentence is uppercase and the rest is lower case, there are finger spaces between words, and periods at the end of sentences. We will continue to work on this in class. -During reading, we have been working in small groups and independent centers. With me, students have been working on skills at their level (letters, letter sounds, word families, etc.) and/or reading instructional level texts and focusing on comprehension strategies for their level. In independent centers, students have been working on I-read and partner or private reading. Students will continue reading/looking at nonfiction (teach about the world) books from their book bins independently and with a partner. We will continue to focus on how “Readers Read With A Partner.” What you can do at home: Read every night like you are working with a partner (sit side by side, have a book in the middle, read back and forth, etc.) and ask your child questions about what she/he is reading about. -In social studies, we have been talking about community helpers and how they are similar/different in other communities including other countries around the world, students’ role as a citizen in their community, and the different roles in a community. We will also continue to add the learner profile words (communicator, thinker, and principled) as well as key concepts (function, connection, and responsibility) to our daily vocabulary. We will be looking at pictures of different communities and talking about what we notice and what we wonder. What you can do at home: Discuss the following: Why is it important to be a good citizen? What is a community? What is a community helper? What role do I play in a community? Below is an attachment about Hispanic Heritage Month
We had an awesome game day today to celebrate our SOAR behavior!
In math today we had a counting and cardinality pizza party! To test our understanding of the relationship between numbers and quantities and act like one of the community helpers we were learning about (a chef) we made pizzas! When counting toppings we made sure to say the number names in the standard order, pairing each object with one and only one number name and each number name with one and only one object. (one-to-one correspondence) In writing we began working on our informational teaching books! We learned how to plan a story across the pages by deciding what will go on each page. We learned that writers spell words fully so they can their stories and so that others can read them as well. Together we said words as slowly as we could, listening carefully to the sounds we heard and wrote them down. Next we said the word again as we reread our writing, listening for the sounds we could hear in the middle and again at the end of the word. In reading we selected books for our book boxes which we read to ourselves or to a partner during reading. We selected books that are "Just Right" for us using "The Goldilocks Rule." The Goldilocks Rule is: Too Hard: - I do not know any words -I need help reading the whole thing -I cannot remember important parts Too Easy: -I know almost all the words -I read the book very quickly -I can retell the story easily Just Right: -I know many words but need help with some -I understand what I am reading but may need to reread at times -The book is not too hard but not too easy When we read books independently (not at the table with Mrs. Adler for reading groups), we learned strategies for reading by ourselves. You can read a book using the pictures to help you, you can read a book by reading the words, and you can read a book by retelling (using the pictures and words to remind you). Today, Glenn Burns from channel 2 came to talk to us about weather and meteorology. The students pointed out that he could be considered a community helper since he warns us when the weather may be unsafe.
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About Me
This is my seventh year at HFE. I love teaching, reading, writing, traveling, and sushi Archives
April 2021
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