Happy Birthday, Luke!

Happy 5th birthday to this little cutie, Luke! We hope you had a wonderful day :)!

Happy Birthday, Ryan!

Happy 5th birthday to this little fella, Ryan! We enjoyed celebrating YOU today :)!

Tuesday's Talk

If you had a chance to take a peak at the blog this morning, you probably noticed that I gave you a "sneak peek" at what I introduced to the class this morning. Today was our first day of poetry journals! Each child received his/her own journal with a poem of the day in it. For the next two weeks our journals will contain poems all about colors (as we are learning about color words). We will only use our poetry journals on Monday, Wednesday and Friday (of course we start off schedule!). These journals will expose the students to new and old sight words, while working on fluency when reading. They really enjoyed their first day with them!

Red

Red is a stop 

sign.

Red is a rose.

Red is an apple,

And a funny, clown's nose.

Below is a picture of the math activity for today. This week I introduced a lesson on the different ways numbers can be represented (dominoes, dice, etc.). This is to work on the skill of subitizing (Illinois Early Learning State Standard). Subitizing is "instantly seeing how many." From a Latin word meaning suddenly, subitizing is the direct perceptual apprehension of the numerosity of a group. 

In this activity, the students were paired up and used one die to play the game. Eventually, the class will play this game using two die (or dice) to work on subitizing and addition.

Sneak Peek!

Today we started something new and exciting! Below is a "sneak peek" at something your son/daughter started this morning. Swing by the blog this afternoon for more details on what we are doing with these fun, little notebooks this year!

An Applelicious Week

Last week we wrapped up our two week apple unit. The class really enjoyed diving into the literature and interacting with the material through crafts, writing and science experiments. Below is a picture of the book we read to kick off our apple unit.

We read about where an apple comes from and documented the seasons of an apple tree. We learned what a label is and why we label things. We practiced this skill through labeling the parts of an apple.

Although in my "teacher brain" I would like to think the class enjoyed creating a web and learning about labels (wink, wink), I think the most enjoyable part for them was being able to dissect an apple :). 

 

Below are two pictures of some students working on their apple math and science journals. They loved using new science and math materials!

We wrapped up the unit with an apple art project. We read our last apple story and talked about the different ways an illustrator can represent an apple. In the story we read the illustrator used quilts. We loved observing the pictures!

I think we can officially say we are now apple experts :)!

A BIG Thank You!

I just wanted to send a HUGE thank you to everyone for making my birthday such a special day. I enjoyed all the beautiful flowers and reading the notes from the kids. Again, thank you for bringing such a big smile to my face. You all made turning 27 extra great :)!

"I Can Create a Meaningful Picture"

The first day of writing can be a terrifying thing (for both the students and the teacher!). Sometimes there are tears and many cries of "I can't". In order to address these concerns, our writing unit starts with a very simple lesson entitled, "I can create a meaningful picture". In this lesson, students are introduced to the very first step in the writing process: creating a picture that tells a story. The students are taught that words have meaning and the meaning behind the words can be depicted in a detailed picture. They did a great job on their first day! I'm very proud of my little ones!