The Last Two Weeks

The snow is melting and the sun seems to be shining more and more every day!  Last week it was time to take down the paper snow globes that lined our wall in the hallway and replace them with something brighter, more springlike...rainbows!

Since we've been reading and learning about nonfiction books, I connected this rainbow painting activity to our curriculum by reading a nonfiction text about rainbows.  The children learned how rainbows are made and what is required to make a rainbow: water droplets in the air and sunlight.  After learning about rainbows and painting, we wrote a class acrostic poem about rainbows.  This was a shared writing activity, so the children came up with the ideas for the poem and took turns writing words in the poem.

Our acrostic poem about rainbows

In addition to learning about rainbows, the children have been reading nonfiction books about snakes, bats, hibernating, ocean animals, sports, and penguins, just to name a few topics.  The children have learned that when reading nonfiction it is important to:

• reread sentences, pages, or the whole book to learn more about a topic.  Readers reread to become more fluent, but also to gain more information than they might have gathered with their first reading.
• study the pictures.  When reading nonfiction, readers don't just read the words then turn the page.  The photographs, maps, diagrams, etc. teach us just as much as the words, and they help us better understand what the text is telling us.

During buddy reading, the children spent time comparing and contrasting information in their books.  Children choose books about a different, but similar topic, or they chose two different books about the same topic to compare and contrast. 

The children have been learning more about word families (words that end with the same spelling pattern that rhyme) and simple consonant-vowel-consonant (CVC) words with the short a sound.  We have studied the -at, -ay, and -an word family.

Writing words in the -at word family

Writing word wall words on individual whiteboards

In writing, we wrapped up our unit on How-To books.  The children chose a book that they wanted to publish.  They worked with a buddy to revise that piece of writing.  Children had to read their how-to book to a buddy, and their buddy had to act it out.  Through this activity, writers were able to see if they had important steps missing in their how-to books.  They could then add that information to their books.

Acting out the steps in our how-to books

After wrapping up our unit on how-to books, we moved on to our next unit: All-About Books.  Children are experts on so many different topics, from Lego's to ballet to bats.  An all-about book is exactly as it sounds: a book all-about a topic.  Children took off with this unit on Tuesday.  Many children are already including a Table of Contents in their books!

During math instruction, the children have continued learning about measurement.  I introduced them to three standard tools for measuring: a meter stick, tape measure, and ruler.  Children had time to explore each tool and then time to measure objects in the classroom using a tool of their choice.

Here are some other skills we've been learning/practicing in math:

•  Adding - In the activity shown below, children had to roll three dice, add the total number of dots, find the sum on the corresponding worksheet, and highlight that number.

•  Ordering numbers - During the activity shown below, children had to order the number cards 0-20 then represent each number with that many beads, rocks, etc.

•  Counting - In the activity shown below, children had to count dots and then write the number.

• Reading two-digit number - In the activity shown below, children chose two number cards, put them together to make a two-digit number, read the number, then found and highlighted the number on a 100 number grid.

Wow, isn't it amazing how much learning is taking place in our classroom?!?  It has been great to hear from so many parents that your children are excited about their learning and are sharing it with you at home.  I hope their love for learning continues to grow every day!

~Katie