November 27th-December 1st

Giving Thanks

The last week and half has been full of learning, fun, and giving thanks. We have focused a lot on the Pilgrims and Indians as well as the First Thanksgiving. To start our week, we discussed various events and people we celebrate throughout the year, and we learned the importance of why we celebrate these important events and people. Then, after defining and discussing what the word "celebrate" means, we began researching and reading about the Pilgrims. We read aloud a book that explained about the Pilgrims voyage and their eagerness to find freedom. After reading together about the Pilgrims, the students read in partners "A Pilgrims Day." Then, as a class we discussed the similarities and differences of life as pilgrim child long ago and the life as a child today. By using a venn diagram students were challenged to think even more on their own of how food, houses, toys, and clothing long ago compared to those things we have today. We also wrote an informational writing piece about Pilgrims and focused more specifically on improving our topic sentences. After learning about the Pilgrims, we focused on the Wampanoag Indian tribe. The students were intrigued by this group of Indians and their role in helping the Pilgrims as they came to America. In addition to reading various non-fiction texts about the Native Americans, we also played a trivia game. This opportunity brought about good discussion and teamwork as the kids had to work together in their teams to agree upon if the various statements about the Wampanoag Indians were facts or opinions. The kids loved getting to learn about the Indians and really enjoyed making their vests and headbands for the feast using the Native American symbols and signs.

The last two days we have focused on The First Thanksgiving and why it was celebrated. Not only did students use the read aloud text to help them build their knowledge of this event, they also used their background knowledge of Pilgrims and Indians to help them make inferences about the First Thanksgiving. After reading and learning about the First Thanksgiving, the students each created their own web about this event and used their web to write a topic sentence with 3 details. After much discussion, questioning, reading and writing the students definitely understood better the significance of Thanksgiving. Finally, to end our week each student reflected on what they were thankful for, and then they wrote about one specific thing using details to support their reason.

On that note, I want to express to you how blessed I am by your kiddos. I consider it a privilege to teach your child each day, and I am so grateful to have such a rewarding and fun job that doesn't feel like work at all. Thank you for trusting me with your most precious gifts and giving me the chance to love, inspire, and teach them. I appreciate your confidence in me and your support. Your children have already left a special mark on my life, and I have realized I need them more then they probably need me. I consider it great honor having the opportunity to teach your child, and I count it as one of my greatest blessings this Thanksgiving. My heart is full!

  

P.S. - We did do other stuff the last week and half like reading and writing "l" blend words, making patterns using shapes, and using ordinal numbers, but the highlight has been our theme, The First Thanksgiving.

Wright's Weekly News

This week we studied two different authors, Eric Carle and Dr. Seuss. I read to the kids Eric Carle's biography, and then together we picked out important facts and made an anchor chart. The kids read independently about Dr. Seuss and wrote down important facts in their writing journals. After reading about each author, the students learned about text and graphic features. In our text, Dr. Seuss, we found the following Non-Fiction text features: table of contents, captions, photographs, and bold face words. In order to help us identify and recall these features, we created a book to share with our families. Throughout the week we read various stories written by Eric Carle and Dr. Seuss. As a recap of the week we wrote an informational piece about Eric Carle. Before they wrote independently, I modeled for the students how to write an informational writing piece with their help using facts we had learned from Dr. Seuss' biography. I emphasized the importance of topic sentences, and we discussed various examples of good introduction sentences.

Our phonics focus was on "s blends." Throughout the week the students practiced hearing, writing, and reading "s blend" words. We did various word and picture sorts, as well as an "s blend" spider that we used to write down various words we came up with that had "s blends." Our end of the week spelling assessment consisted of shaving cream fun with "s blends". 

We continued learning about shapes this week in math, but more specifically we focused on 3-D shapes. In our math journals we glued a picture of each 3-D shape and listed various attributes for each shape. After exploring each shape's attributes, the kids experimented in groups which shapes could stack, slide, and roll. We ended our week by finding shapes in the real world through a shape hunt. We then reviewed our findings and shared what we discovered on Friday. 

Weekly News November 7th-10th

Our Week

Our phonics focus this week was on r blends. We practiced sorting r blend picture words in groups on Monday, finding r blends in our weekly poem on Tuesday, alphabetizing our words on Wednesday, and making r blend words on Thursday. Today we did a quick spelling and reading assessment to end our week with r blends. 

The comprehension focus this week was main idea and details. In order to help the students understand the concept of main idea, I brought in several mystery bags with various clues. After showing the clues to the students they had to guess the main idea of my bag. For example, one bag had a measuring cup, cookie cutter, spatula, and whisk. The kids used the clues to figure out that the main idea of that bag was baking. After doing some whole group practice, the students had the chance to go on their own main idea mystery hunt around the room. They used picture clues to solve the main idea of the various bags throughout the room. After practicing identifying main idea we applied this to our read aloud text about bats. The students drew detailed pictures from the text on puzzle pieces. We discussed how all the pieces of a puzzle are details that come together to create the main idea of the puzzle, just like all the details in a book come together to make the main idea of the book. After that, the students used what they learned about main idea and details to make a simple web about the story they read, How Animals Communicate. Today, we used what we have learned about animals, main idea, and webs to create team posters. Since the students got new groups today, I made each team decide on a group name that was an animal. Then, they had to use the books that corresponded to their animal to do research about their animal. The details they found out about their animals had to be used in a way they could apply them to classroom procedures, rules, and expectations. For instance the tiger group, said they were going to follow directions quickly because tigers are fast. The kids had so much fun with this, and it really encouraged some creative as well as fun thinking. 

In math, we began shapes. The first part of the week we practiced identifying triangles, squares, rectangles, and circles as well as getting to know their attributes.  We discussed more specifically how many corners and sides all the various shapes have. Then, we made shape monsters only using paper triangles, squares, rectangles, and circles. After the kids made their monsters they wrote about their monster's features (eyes, mouth, nose) and what their monster can do. Once the students learned all the shapes attributes, they then learned how they can sort shapes. They practiced sorting shapes and comparing how they are alike and different based on color, shape, and size. Today we finished learning about 2-D shapes by paritioning shapes into halves and fourths. The kids enjoyed using (and eating) cookies to help them demonstrate their understanding of fractions.