Books books and more books

Teachable moments...
They happen all the time, but today this one stood out. When looking at our ten's frame and counting to the number of days we have been in school, Luca asked "why is there a 0 in our number 108?" Beth took this moment to discuss 1's, 10's and 100's. It's a big concept at this age, but when the question arises you take the opportunity to explain.

Book Corner....
Earlier in the week we had a chance to each choose a book that we liked. We brought our book back to circle and told the class why we liked the book. Every chance we have had to read a book that the kids brought to us, we have been reading them. The kids may have liked the title, have read the book before or just liked the characters in the book they choose. Here are a few that they liked and we have read this week.

Berenstain Bears and the Double Dare

Bugs! Bugs! Bugs!

Berenstain Bears Down on the Farm

Butterflies

Math....
The clap game. We listen to the number of times that Beth claps her hands and then we have to write the number our white boards. It is hard to listen to all the claps. Serious concentration is required!

We also practiced more with number bonds. Listening to a story the kids have to put the unifix cubes where they should go on the number bond page. 

Language Arts....

We have been reading a lot! This week we got beginner reader books and are coloring in our pages. We will be taking home this book today to continue practicing our reading skills.  It's a funny book all about Cats!

Free Choice....

Coloring and painting

 Playdough

Building with Jenga blocks.

Fish lips!

 Narumi practicing reading her Cat book she just made.

Architects in the making.

The Zoo with Stella and Sedsel.

 Willow and Ashlyn creating their shopping list.

Zoe and Ethan playing house

Morning Meeting....
This weeks challenge....NO CALLING OUT! We are working on kids being respectful when others are talking and also raising our hands when we want to be heard.

We shared "what's the news" today. Everyone went around the room and shared what they did this weekend.

Letter matching. We were handed either a lower case letter or an upper case letter and then you had to walk around and find it's match. Lowercase "n" to uppercase "N".

Math....
Practicing writing numbers on our white boards. We had to write the number that "comes next." Beth would say a number and kids had to write the number that came next.

We continue to work on number bonds. This time we have to figure out where the lines for the number bonds go. We are connecting the bonds to create the proper equation.


Language Arts....
We are continuing with our stations. We have the folder station that kids work on individual worksheets that practice writing letter and recognizing and making words.  We are also practicing writing their names using lines on the paper, writing a capital letter for the first letter in their name and then using the rest lower case. We also have a station for Lexia on the iPads and reading books in small groups.


Book Corner....
Captain Peppers Pets   Anything but a parrot! Captain Pepper wants a pet. He wants to be different . . . he wants to be famous . . . so a boring old parrot just won’t do. The fiery captain sets his pirate crew to find the perfect pet. They try a hippopotamus, a monkey and a leopard – each with hilariously disastrous results. Finally, they alight upon a python and Captain Pepper is delighted! But the last laugh is on him when his not so cuddly companion has him for dinner! At last his browbeaten crew can sail home in peace. 


Recess....

 Future Olympians practicing the skeleton run.

Mermaids and Mermen.

Boys Ahoy!

Bones

Morning Meeting....
Greeting this morning is "Mrs. Marbles." Challenge is to get through the greeting without any laughing or giggling. "Have you seen Mrs. Marbles?" "No, I'll check with my neighbor." Everyone went around the room and said this to each other. At the end the big questions was "WHO is Mrs. Marbles?" She is a mystery.  What is the point of an activity like this? Social skills. Learning to be polite even when something seems silly.

Math....
Matching the same amount. Everyone got a piece of paper with a certain number of stars, dots, a number, flowers and everyone had to look for someone that has the same amount of things as you.
We then put all the pieces of paper upside down, to play the game Memory.

We continued to talk about number bonds. Showing that each bond having a number, brought together with the other bond, brings a total number. Today we had the trickier way of filling in a number bond. There were 6 stars total. Each of the other bonds had to have their own number. So we put 3 in one bond, 3 in another and the total of both is 6.

Free Choice....

Blocks were put together to go all around the room. 

 Skyler built his own plane. A lot of thought and engineering went into this project. 

Coloring and making paper doll clothes.

Science....

Bones in our body. Today we looked at what our bones look like in our body under the skin. 

Putting together the bones that make the structure of our hands. 

All hands on deck!!!!

Recess....

Climbing and relaxing!

Snow spa! Nothing like some special crystals to make your hair look nice and sparkly. 

Happy Valentine's Day!

Math...
We played a fun Valentine's Bingo game.

We started learning about number bonds!

Language Arts....
We have been doing a lot of reading as small groups and individually. It's been so great to see the excitement with kids as they start to recognize words and can read sentences. Yes, there is a fair amount of memorization, but hey, that's part of the beginning stages of reading. I love when they have read a book and then look up as if they are surprised with themselves that they have read the book. We also ask kids to point out individual words on a page. Also we ask questions like, what is at the end of the sentence? How many words make that sentence?

Book Corner.....
Splat the Cat

We made folders for all of our special cards/treats from friends. Then we shared what we had to give to our friends.

Lot's of "Thank You's" and "Wow, that was really nice of you." and "Nice card." Very grateful kids for their friends Valentine's.


Science...
We have been learning about the Structure and Function of the parts of the body. Today we talked more about the heart and how it pumps blood.  We watched a short video. It was a great tie in to our Valentine's hearts that we have been making for friends and family.