Week of March 11-15

Greetings from the light blue room!

We had a great week this week! We are continuing to talk about and use the habit "Seek First to Understand, then to be Understood." We talk about listening with our eyes, our ears and our heart. This helps us be a good friend to others. To go along with this, we read Rainbow Fish this week. In this story, Rainbow Fish learns that sharing with others leads to having more friends and being happier. We celebrated on Friday by making our own Rainbow FIsh and watching the short Rainbow Fish film!

Making our Rainbow Fish!

In reading this week we studied syllables. As an introduction, we clapped out the syllables in everyone's name in the room. Each day, we have been practicing "clapping out" words. As an activity, we looked at pictures and colored the correct number of syllables each picture had. We also did a syllable sort. Students cut our pictures, clapped them out, and pasted them in the correct column baed on number of syllables. Students did a great job with this! We continue to practice our fix-it, sight words and spelling words each day. Right now we are really focusing on handwriting with lowercase letters. Please encourage your child to write in lowercase letters and remind them that uppercase letters are only needed in special situations, such as names and the beginning of a sentence.

We love writing!

In writing this week we focused on telling our stories to a partner while touching each page before writing. Students were encouraged to talk about their story with someone next to them before beginning. This ensures that they have their writing set up to make sense before they begin. We also focused on writing with details to make our stories more interesting. We talked about writing words in a "snap." This means there are some words that students just know, like the for example. I pointed to the word wall and reminded students that the wall is a tool they can use to write words in a "snap."

Discussing our ideas before we begin writing!

In math this week we continued to review equations and talked about the 3D shape of a cube. Our equations are a little more difficult than they were in the beginning. Students are now able to add and subtract partners of 10 rather than just partners of 5. I introduced the cube and we talked about how it is different from a square and that is has  6 sides. We discussed where we see cubes in real life. I asked students to keep an eye out for cubes over the weekend. On Monday, we will discuss where we spotted cubes outside of school.

Experimenting during Science!

In science this week we continued to talk about gravity and force by using a push or a pull. We experimented with ramps, golf balls and ping pong balls. Students made predictions about which ball would roll down faster, slower and why. These little scientists had so much fun experimenting!

iPads during Friday Fun Centers!

In Brain Blast we talked about how we each have our own unique fingerprints which makes us special. We made fun fingerprint art!

A note from Ms. Natalia:

This week in Spanish we studies "los animales" y "la familia." (Animals and Family) 
Next week we will finish "la familia."
Please review the following vocabulary terms with your child:

-el perro (dog)
-el gato (cat)
-el chivo (goat)
-el pato (duck)
-el pajaro (bird

-abuelo/abuela (grandpa/grandma)
-bebe (baby)
-mama/papa (mom/dad)
-hermano/hermana (brother/sister)

-the verb dibujar, which means "to draw"
-the question "Que es?" which means "What is.."

Notes/Reminders:

-please send your child to school with a snack for our daily 10:00 snack time

-please check the lost and found near our room for missing items. We have many unclaimed items!

Have a great week!

Ms. Monica