Week of December 10-14

Hello from the light blue room!

We had a wonderful week together. This week, we have been talking about the second habit: "Beginning with the End in Mind." We read a story about this habit and the character Goob taught us the importance of starting our day by beginning with the end in mind. In the story, Goob makes sure to save his money so he has enough to do all of the things he wants to. He plans ahead and thinks of others before making choices.

Together, we thought about how each of us wanted to end our day. We talked about filling our fishbowls, helping mom and dad out at home, making a new friend, etc. We also drew pictures of ourselves beginning with the end in mind and wrote about those choices. We talked about how we could all reach our goals if we continue to be the leader of our choices each day.

Deputy Knott came in to talk to us about safety and how we can help our community to be safe.

This week we read a book called "Have You Filled a Bucket Today?" This book talks about how everyone in the world has an invisible bucket. When a person is feeling loved their bucket is full. We talked about how something as small as giving someone a smile can fill their bucket. We also talked about how when we fill other friend's buckets, we are also filling our own. We are using this term in our room when we talk about how our actions affect one another. We all want our room to be safe, happy, and a place where everyone feels loved with a full bucket. 

Checking out the police car!

We learned two new sight words this week: in, can. Your child should have come home with their first sight word list this week. Please study these words along with reading your child's JRL book. Every Tuesday I will be assessing students to see if they are ready to move on to their next list. Way to go readers!

We are continuing to talk about authors and illustrators in both reading and writing. Before reading books we talk about the author and what the book may be about just by the title and looking at the cover. In our daily fix-its, we continue to focus on the beginning of our sentence having an uppercase letter and punctuation marks. This week we learned about quotation marks and how they tell us when people in the book are talking.

Brody, Olivia, Abraham and Alexis writing and designing a thank you card for one of the donors of our school.  

Way to work as a team!

In writing this week we learned about writing lists. We discussed how writing comes in many different forms: stories, lists, letters, etc. As a class we talked about what a list might look like and how there are many different kinds of lists for many different reasons. We discussed how people may make grocery lists, chores lists, present lists and more. Individually we created our own personal lists and will continue working on them next week. Soon we will learn about writing letters!

In math this week we continued to work on simple addition and subtraction math equations. We also focused on the teen numbers and drawing numbers using 5-groups. We put two 5-groups together and added more tiles to make the teen numbers. We talked about how when we solve math equations, we can draw pictures, use our fingers or use math manipulatives if we need extra help. What a phenomenal group of mathematicians!

Memphis, Braylee and Abraham working on Frosty hats for our caroling!

On Monday, we finished our Civics and Government unit. Deputy Knott came in to discuss his role as a police officer in our community. He talked with us about community safety and how we can practice good citizenship. We also learned the Pledge of Allegiance. We talked about why we say it and where it came from. Later in our week we role played different safety situations and what we should do in those situations. We "practiced" calling 911 and talked about when to call and when not to. At the end of our week, we began our Economics unit. The students learned what a good was and classified different goods as needs or wants. Next week we will learn about services.

Notes/Reminders:

-Youngest Friend's field trip is this Wednesday, December 19 to the Appledorn Living Center. Please drop off your child's labeled car seat that morning or they will not be able to join us on the field trip.

-Spelling tests will begin when we come back from break.

-Please continue to review the sight word list your child brought home.

-The Beta high school students are putting a talent show together for this coming February. If your child is interested, please see the Innocademy blog for more information.

-Growth portfolios will be sent home again this Thursday.

Have a great week!

Ms. Monica

Week of December 3-7

What a wonderful week!

We had a great week together in the light blue room. In reading this week we continued to practice our punctuation marks. We are able to use and recognize a period, exclamation point and question mark. When reading with your child, point these marks out and ask your child what they are and what they are used for. We practice our sight words every day and buttered them in our Funny Fish booklets. Everyone took home our first sight word list this week. As your child learns more words, they will bring home new lists to practice. Please practice these sight words with your child. Next week we will begin learning more about authors and illustrators. Students continue to meet with me for small group reading time and are doing a fabulous job!

Spanish time with Ms. Mel!

Writing our sight words.

Practicing story sequencing during centers.

In writing this week we continued to work in our booklets. We are focusing on stretching out our stories into four events. We are also working on adding details to our pictures and our words. In our room we practice "writing with stamina." This means we write for about 25 minutes and we keep going. We remind ourselves that when we think we are done with our writing, we are just getting started. This helps the kiddos really focus on their small moments and turn them into beautiful pieces of writing. I am so proud of these authors!

Writing math equations.

In math this week we learned about partners of numbers 1-6. To introduce this concept, students came up to the front of class to act out each partner of each number. Then, we used number tiles to show these partners as well. The students also used white boards to show each equation using number partners. For example, 2+3=5. We talked about how even though these number partners will stay the same, they may switch order. For example: 2+3=5 and 3+2=5. At the end of the week we practiced solving addition and subtraction equations. We talked about how we could use our fingers and draw pictures to help us solve these equations. They did a fantastic job on solving their equations!

Acting out positive choices and good citizenship.

iPads during Friday Fun Centers!

Going through the obstacle course in Brain Blast!

Acting out math partners!

In social studies we talked about positive and negative choices. Students demonstrated these choices in front of the class and we discussed if it was a positive or a negative choice. Later in the week we talked about good and poor citizenship. Students took pictures of good and poor citizenship, sorted and glued them in the appropriate column. We had a discussion about our own personal lives and how we are working on sharing, taking turns, and sticking to our class pledge.

Notes/Reminders:

-Please pack a morning snack for your child

-When your child is the "Innokid" of the week they will be able to bring show and tell all week

-I will be doing assessments this week on sight words. Look for your child's individual list this week!

Have a great week!

Ms. Monica

November 26-30

Hello from the youngest friend's room!

We had such a wonderful week this week! Everyone had such a great time walking around the marketplace and book fair with his/her older friend. We had so much fun looking at all of the items and supporting our older friends and their field trips!

This week we began new specials! We continue to have Music and Art, but we also have Technology and Brain Blast on Fridays now!

Jossalyn, Isabelle and Ezekiel working on the iPads in Tech!

Exercising our brains and bodies in Brain Blast!

In reading this week we learned two new sight words: black and white. We continue to practice our sight words every day. We will soon be sending home individual sight word lists with about 8 words on them. Please continue to practice these high frequency words with your child. We have learned the following sight words so far this year: 

a is

to my

go me

like on

in we

and yellow

green blue

orange red

purple black

white 

the 

I

We continue to do small group reading in class at their just right level. We also continue to practice our letter sounds and punctuation. Ask your child to show you what a question mark, period, and exclamation mark look like!

This week we worked on the letter Ee and learned our "Elmo the Elephant" song! This song is more challenging than our previous songs but the kiddos did a great job with it! Each student received their very own "Elmo the Elephant" book and we "buttered" our sight words in them. They did a wonderful job!

 Micah, Jossalyn, Olivia, Sierra and Brody working on their "Elmo the Elephant" books.

In writing this week we worked on stretching out small, true moments and putting them in our booklets. We talked about how writing in booklets helps us write like real authors, putting one piece of our story on each page. When writing, we are learning to picture each moment in our minds, stretching it out, and putting the pictures on each page. After that, we add words to each picture and part of our story.

This week in math we took our Unit 2 math test. On Wednesday we began our third unit in our just right math books. We talked about groups of ten and groups of five. Using pennies and our ten strips, students created math equations! We are focusing on the teen numbers. Students organized their pennies into groups of ten and added more to that group of ten with pennies. They then wrote equations to show the teen number they had made (10+4=14). This was great practice for learning our teen numbers.

On Monday, we finished our Geography unit by talking about ways we can improve our environment. We read a book about this and students learned about recycling and other ways we can reuse our resources. On Wednesday we began our unit on Civics and Government. We discussed the concept of safety and citizenship at school and at home. As a class, we made a list of class promises that would help us stay safe at home and at school. We also talked about what it means to be a responsible citizen. We talked about how our actions affect others and why it is important to keep our class promises both at home and at school.

Abraham, Braylee, Aliana and Bryce making snowmen during our Friday Fun Centers!

Notes/Reminders:

-If you have not turned in your child's growth portfolio, please do so by the end of this week.

Have a great week!

Ms. Monica