Fairy Tales

Poem: Castle
Sight Words: get, of

Reading: This week our strategy focus was cause and effect. Students were introduced to this concept with a Pic Collage lesson. Students were shown 3 different photos of things that could happen (falling off a bike, brushing teeth, and rain). We discussed how because something happens it then causes something to happen. Students helped connect the cause picture to the effect picture. Throughout the week we read Fairy Tales and recalled the cause and effect within the story. For example in Goldilocks and The Three Bears, Goldilocks takes a bite of hot porridge. The cause was hot porridge, the effect was a burnt tongue and she spit it out!

Throughout the week we are working on reading and spelling words in our word families. We have started using Google Slides to help us with this skill. Students see a picture then try spelling the word on their own. After using their skills to write the word, they then are shown the next slide to see if they were correct!

The vocabulary this week went along with our Fairy Tale/Fable Unit. We read the famous fable, "The Little Red Hen". The words we focused on within the story were delight, doubt, fable, admire, delicious, and sigh. As a review we used pic collage to match the emoji picture with the word.

For ipads this week students used the app by Duck Duck Moose called Princess Fairy Tale Maker. Students were able to retell a known fairy tale or create their own and uploading to Google Classroom. Here are a few of their creations!

Students also used the app ABC word families to write and read words in the -ake and -ate word families.

Writing: This week in writing we finished our informational writing unit with our post assessment and started writing our class fairy tale. We used the fairy tale formula to brainstorm ideas for our story then we made final decisions to create the finished product. Students helped write, illustrate and narrate the story until we had a finished product. We created our story using Book Creator and will share with families during Parent-Teacher conferences.

Math: This week students learned the words row and column. This helped as we learned about graphs throughout the week. Students were exposed to different types of graphs and learned how to read graphs as well as record their own data using a graph. Students brainstormed times they have seen graphs in their everyday life of which included a stamina chart at the beginning of the year, ClassDojo percentage pie chart, and their percentage pie chart on ESGI. We made a class chart each day, one being a bar graph and a picture graph. At the end of the week students recorded their own data on their bar graph. Students asked their classmates if they would rather have Goldilocks eat their porridge or sleep in their bed. We discussed their findings after the lesson.

Content: This week we were able to read so many fairy tales and have fun with each that we read! We started by learning what a fairy tale was by looking at our class chart. Then after listening to "Jack and the Beanstalk" we found a letter from the Giant! We used his footprints to measure items around the room. With a partner students documented their findings using the app Popplet. They were looking for things that were longer, shorter, and the same size as his foot.

Students also created a Goldilocks retell craft. After reading the story students illustrated the beginning, middle, and end of the story.

We finished the week with our Fairy Tale Ball. Students were encouraged to dress up like a fairy tale characters and learn dance moves as we danced to music in the gym on Friday morning. We also had juice and cookies at our Fairy Tale tea afterwards.

STEM: We also made time for a fairy tale STEM activity! Students were given the task to create a house for their pig. They were given 12 DOT candy pieces and toothpicks to complete the challenge. Students were told that it needed to have 4 sides and a roof and they had 10 minutes to complete the challenge. After building we used the Big Bad Wolf (blow dryer) to test the structure. We had lots of creative ideas and 3 successful groups!

SEL (Social Emotional Learning): Social and emotional learning (SEL) is the process through which children and adults acquire and effectively apply the knowledge, attitudes, and skills necessary to understand and manage emotions, set and achieve positive goals, feel and show empathy for others, establish and maintain positive relationships, and make responsible decisions.

This week we started our unit about Growth Mindset. Having a growth mindset means that we don't give up easily and we try even when things get hard. This week we started by watching videos of Mojo on ClassDojo. He goes through a process of developing a growth mindset with some help from others. Each day we discussed the videos. We also made a chart together as a class with speech bubbles indicating things we say if we show a growth mindset. We ended the week with reading the book, "The Most Magnificent Thing". This was a great ending to the week that showed us what it looks like to not give up. 

Ways you can help your child at home:

• Encourage your child by saying, "Keep trying! You can do it!"
• Help them think about the situation by asking, "What can we try differently?"
• Model having a growth mindset when things are challenging for you. Talk to them about it. 

NEXT WEEK:
Reading: Students will...
-make words in the -ide and -ice word families.
-discuss how characters change.

Writing: Students will...
-learn about Opinion writing.

Math: Students will...
-learn about the word sum.
-understand and create ways to make 10.

Content: Students will begin learning about weather as we start our 2 week unit before Spring Break.