Thanksgiving

Poem: Turkey in the Barnyard
Sight Words: she, you

Reading: This week students worked on the strategy: Respond to Questions. This is a great skill to use a home and encourage them to ask questions to you. Throughout the story I will stop and ask questions some of which include:

• What happened on the page?
• Who are the characters?
• What is the setting?
• How does the character feel?
• Why do you think the character did that?

Students are encouraged to listen and think about the story.

We also read a new book with new vocabulary words this week. It was all about making bread from scratch. Our words included: golden, patch, grind, crop, sprout, sturdy.

With ipads students were encouraged to look at pictures and write the 3 letter word using their sounds. To check their work they scanned the QR code. They were great when taking their time to write each word!

This week students learned words from the -it word family. We used the prezi below to introduce these words and build them later in the week.


Writing: This week we reviewed ending punctuation and explained how important it is to include at the end of every sentence. We watched the sentence video again and then practiced adding punctuation to sentences. We also introduced our first Checklist. We talked about how important a checklist is and how Mrs. Keller uses a checklist when she goes to the store. Making a list on the board, I asked if it would be okay to leave the store if I had everything checked off the list except eggs. They all replied "NO!" I compared this to our writing. When students are finished they use their checklist to review their writing. If something isn't checked off their list, then they are not ready to publish their story and upload in Book Creator. They did a great job using their checklist the first day.

Math: This week in math someone from the class has started leading in Number of the Day as well as Calendar. This person helps the class complete the back of their calendar journal for Number of the Day.

We spent time this week and reviewed 3D shapes. We re watched the 3D shape video and found real objects around the room to compare to our foam shapes. We not only named the 3D shapes but also described each by naming the number of vertices and faces. Make sure you are reviewing these skills with your child!

For Math with Someone we added the Domino Parking Lot game. Students take turns pulling a domino out of the bag. They then add up the sides and place it in the correct spot on the paper that displays that number.

For ipads this week students returned to the app Animal Math. Students were to work on addition to 5 this week. This was good practice for next week and the weeks to come as we begin to fluently add within 5.

Content: This week we celebrated Thanksgiving a variety of ways. We made place mats in which we wrote our sight words on the feathers. The place mats were used for our feast on Wednesday when we ate in the classroom and watched Charlie Brown Thanksgiving. We also painted feathers and made ourselves into turkeys. On each feather we wrote one thing we are thankful for. We also made feather headdresses and pilgrim hats for our celebration on Wednesday. We ate all together just like the pilgrims and Indians did so many years ago.

NEXT WEEK:
Reading: Students will...
-learn words in the -og word family.
-summarize stories read.

Writing: Students will...
-review how to be a smarty speller.
-learn about speech bubbles.
-make a list of characters, setting locations, and what happened to write a story (not necessarily true).

Math: Students will...
-learn about Gus the Plus.
-practice addition.

Content: Students will listen to a variety of Gingerbread stories and do activities to go with the stories read. We will sequence stories, compare stories, and complete a gingerbread craft.

Pilgrims/Indians

Poem: My Turtle
Sight Words:got, his

Reading: This week our focus was to analyze characters. When reading a story we didn't stop by asking who the main characters were, but we continued to talk about the character throughout the story. We asked questions like, "How was the character feeling? What did the character do about the problem? What was the character like? What did the character look like?" This helps students understand the story more by analyzing who the story is about.

We also learned and made a list of words in the -ig word family. We started with our prezi and then made a list of words that we remembered from the first day (and generated new words). We finished by going on our word hunt by building and blending CVC -ig words. They are getting so good at this!


Our vocabulary words this week were from the book Owl Moon. The words that we learned and added to our expanded vocabulary chart were: bright, statue, shadow, brave, minute, and echo.

Writing: This week in Writer's Workshop we learned how important it was to include a capital letter at the beginning of the sentence. We watched the sentence video which talked about capitals and punctuation. Then we fixed sentences that did not start with a capital letter. Sentences were generated in Book Creator and students were encouraged to find the error and fix it.

We also talked and discussed what makes writing easy and hard to read. We made a chart and shared pre-made examples to explain why certain writing is hard to read. Throughout the remainder of the week we fixed errors in our writing by practicing with Mrs. Keller's writing.

Math: This week our vocabulary word was add. We learned explored and learned different ways to make numbers 6-9. Students used number bond bracelets and math tools to show different ways to make a number as we completed the chart as a class.

A new choice was added to help students practice addition. For a math by myself activity students use the number bond bracelets to show ways to make a number then they use the dry erase marker to write the equations.

For the math app students practiced addition through the app called Number Bond Blaster. This is a fun way to practice as students see number bonds and have to find the missing number.

Content: This week's focus was pilgrims and Native Americans. On Monday we watched a variety of videos that explained why the pilgrims sailed on the Mayflower over to America. We also used PebbleGo to learn about an important Native American who helped the Pilgrims, Squanto.
Then students compared Native Americans and Pilgrims by matching the correct hat with the short sentence.

Students also cut out pictures and sorted the pictures that described pilgrims and Native Americans.

We ended the week with our corn craft. Students had to write about when they have taught a friend something, just like Squanto taught the pilgrims how to grow crops.

Social Emotional Learning: This week we talked about Teamwork and Cooperation. We started the week by reading the book 3 Hens and a Peacock. This is a story about cooperative and the importance of everyone having a special job to get something accomplished. We also watched a video from Kid President that encouraged us to work together with others. We talked about the 3 C's in teamwork and used these words when we had our team building activities on Thursday and Friday. Students had to walk a short distance with a ball in between them and their friend. They needed to depend on the other person and talk about how they were going to make it to the other table. On Friday we built a cup tower as a class. We realized it was harder than we thought when the first tower we built was small and the second fell over. Our third attempt was the best, because we worked together and encouraged others with our kind words!

NEXT WEEK:
Reading: Students will...
-respond to questions in a story.
-generate a list of -it words.

Writing: Students will...
-discuss the importance of an ending mark.
-learn how to use a checklist at the end of a writing.

Math: Students will...
-learn ways to make 10.
-review ways to make numbers 1-10.

Content: Students will be celebrating Thanksgiving. Students will learn more about the first Thanksgiving and have their own feast in the classroom.

Nocturnal Animals

Poem: Muffin Man
Sight Words: do, had

Reading: Our reading focus this week was make a mental image. This is great for any reader as they listen to a story that is being read to them they are thinking about the words and picturing what is on the page. As we are reading before showing the page I will ask, "What do you think the picture looks like? What did the illustrator draw?" We also practiced this strategy by matching printed picture with the words that I read aloud. They had to correctly match the picture to what they heard.

Students also learned how to complete the new work on writing page. While at this choice students are to use a book in their book box and draw a picture of the setting and characters. Students are also encouraged to write a sentence or words about the setting and characters.

Students learned and read words in the -et word family this week. We watched a picture video on Monday, listed words on Tuesday, and blended words on a word hunt on Wednesday.


Writing: This week in Writer's Workshop students learned about meatball and spaghetti spaces. Meatball spaces are spaces in between words and are important to know what we are reading. Spaghetti spaces are tiny spaces in between letters in words. We introduced this concept using a chart and then students practiced using "meatball spacers" while writing. These are tools that help them know how much space is good enough.

Throughout the week we also reviewed each part of a true story and brainstormed ideas for the who, where, and what happened. Students were able to work in small groups and learn how to upload their story onto Book Creator.

Math: In math students learned ways to make the numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and 5. Students used math tools to show these ways to better understand the variety of ways. Our vocabulary word this week was plus and we used this many times as we read the ways to make each number.

Content: This week we learned about nocturnal animals. We first learned what nocturnal meant and classified animals into 2 categories; nocturnal and diurnal. Then we used a read aloud from reading (Stellaluna) and an informational video from PebbleGo to compare and contrast the similarities and differences between birds and bats.

We also talked about owls and completed a tree map with what owls are, what they can do, and what they have. Students finished the week with an owl craft that was displayed with their tree map.

iPads: This week for ipads students using the app Chatterpix to take a picture of a character from a story that they listened to. Within the app they recorded what happened in the beginning, middle and end of the story.

Popplet was another fun app that students used this week to record their sight words. They were able to make their own graph including sight words that they typed and wrote using the pen tool.

In math students used QR codes to scan numbers around the room. They then used their recording sheet to document each number on a tens frame.

For our vocabulary review this week we used a new app called Draw and Tell by Duck Duck Moose. Students used the stamps to create a picture and explain that it was peculiar. Students learned that the word peculiar means strange.

NEXT WEEK:
Reading: Students will....
-analyze characters in a story.
-learn words in the -ig word family.

Writing: Students will....
-practice writing capital at the beginning of a sentence only.
-discuss what makes writing easy and hard to read.

Math: Students will....
-learn ways to make the number 6, 7, 8, and 9.

Content: Students will....
learn about the pilgrims and Native Americans. They will compare and contrast the similarities and differences and talk about how they were both important with our first Thanksgiving.