We had a great trip to Wolfe's Neck Farm last week. Below is a snapshot of our morning at the farm.
As a follow-up lesson to our field trip, we learned more about the life cycle of a pumpkin. Children completed a life cycle project, which they brought home on Thursday. I hope your child used this project to teach you what he/she learned about the life cycle of a pumpkin.
As I shared with many of you during conferences, my lessons during reading workshop have shifted from reading pictures to reading words in just right books. Last week, I taught students the following strategies/skills for reading words in books:
- Readers point under each word as they read, jumping crisply from one word to the next.
- Many of the words in our books are on our word wall, so we already know how to read them.
- Readers can look closely at the pictures in their books to help them figure out unknown words (we call this Eagle Eye).
Last week during Writing Workshop, we continued our unit on science writing. Our field trip to the farm provided us with the perfect object to write about: a pumpkin! The children spent a day or two writing a book about their pumpkin. Students learned that just like the books we are reading contain lots of word wall words, so can the books we write. I taught the children to use words from our word wall to help them write sentences.
Last week during Math we:
- Played a game called Race-to-the-Top. This game introduced children to the idea that when rolling a die, each number has the same chance of being rolled because each number appears on the die the same number of times.
- Learned about a balance scale.
- Learned a new game called Monster Squeeze. In this partner game, one child picks a number and the other child has to guess the number. If the child guesses incorrectly, his/her partner gives a comparison clue (ex. My number is bigger than ___). This game helps children learn to compare numbers.
Warmly,
Katie
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