Greetings from the Youngest Friend's room!
We began the week by diving into Habit 4: Think Win-Win. Thinking win-win is about balancing courage for getting what you want while considering what others may want. It is about filling the buckets of others and looking for different alternatives when conflicts arise.
In the story, Lily wanted to plant her own garden after visiting her teacher's garden. Lily's mother agreed that having a garden would be fun, but it takes a lot of work and responsibility to keep up with a garden. Lily proceeded to write her mother a letter describing what she would do to take care of the garden and how her mother could enjoy the garden as well. After reading the letter, Lily's mother agreed to the garden. Lily explained to her mother that she would get to enjoy all of the fruits and veggies while Lily took care of all of the hard work. Lily's mother agreed this was a win-win situation. We will continue to talk about win-win situations and how we can find win-wins both at home and at school. Each day we apply the 7 habits vocabulary at school. This is something that can also be used at home as the students learn more about using the 7 habits.
In reading this week we studied the short vowel /e/. We learned a new song for this vowel as well. Students did a great job! Students did a short vowel picture sort, sorting pictures that had either the short /a/ or short /e/ sound. We also made short /e/ books together. This week we also introduced the /ck/ ending pattern as it was found in this week's spelling test. We continue to focus on breaking apart words and identifying short vowel sounds in words. The kiddos are doing excellent with this and each week I am seeing improvements in their reading!
In writing this week we focused on writing about small moments. The example I gave the students was my nephew's birthday party. I explained to them that we did lots of things at his birthday party. We played games, we opened presents, we ate cake and ice cream, and we watched a movie. I told them I was just going to write about the part where we sang happy birthday and ate cake. I described each detail: what the cake tasted like, how we were laughing and singing, how many candles he blew out, etc. I explained how you can really focus on details and how a small moment can create a great story to read. They did a great job narrowing down fun experiences to a small moment!
In math this week we began unit 4. We began by using the grocery store to tell math stories. We talked about different ways we could sort the fruits and vegetables and came up with multiple ways of sorting. The students also worked on finding partners of the number 10. We out ten squares face down and pretended that ten bugs were sleeping. We would flip over one bug and say that now 9 were sleeping and 1 was awake, therefore 9 and 1 were a partner of 10. This will help with both addition and subtraction. We also talked about how the number ten relates to teen numbers. Students found they could take a group of ten, add a few to that and they would have a teen number. For example, a ten stick plus five more equals 15. They also found it to be faster using two ten groups to make twenty rather than twenty individual pieces.
This week in Science we discussed motion on the playground. We talked about all of the different types of motion used and then students journaled about what they wanted to investigate about motion. The students added new words to their vocabulary about motion this week, including push, pull, up, down, forward, toward, backward, fast, slow, beside, etc. We also read the book Move it! Motion Forces and You which introduced the concept of force and defined the difference between a push and a pull. Students used a ball as a class to investigate pushes and pulls and test their different theories.
Notes/Reminders:
-Please pack a snack for your child every day
-Spelling tests will be given this Thursday due to Synergy Day being this Friday
-Please continue reading each day with your child. Book-It calendars will be collected again at the end of the month to receive a personal pan pizza!
-Please send your child with appropriate winter attire as we go outside to recess a few times each day
Have a great week!
Ms. Monica
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