Snowy Morning!

The children arrived at school today to find a snow filled playground.  Although the snow has since melted, I thought I'd share our winter playground rules.  If there is snow on the ground, students must wear snow pants and boots in order to play on the snowy areas.  Without snow pants AND boots, children are required to stay on the tarred area.  When snowy weather arrives in full swing, please send your child to school in the morning prepared to play on the playground (boots, snow pants, jackets, hats, gloves/mittens).  Please send a change of shoes your child can change into when he/she gets in the building.  Thank you!

Last week during Reading Workshop we:

• read a poem called American Soldier in honor of Veteran's Day.  We used the poem to learn the word "we," which we then added to our word wall.
• learned about Stretchy Snake as a strategy for reading new words.  This strategy reminds us to stretch the word out like a snake, saying the sound that each letter in the word makes.
• learned about Skippy Frog as a strategy for reading new words.  This strategy reminds us to skip a word we don't know, read on to the end of the sentence, then go back and think of a word that would make sense for the word we skipped.
•  learned that we can use sticky-notes to mark our favorite part of a story.  We can then share our favorite part when we are reading that book to a buddy.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
   
  
  
  
• read with our first grade reading buddies. 

Last week during Writing Workshop we:

• learned that we can use the words on our word wall to help us write pattern books.
• learned that we can write a seesaw pattern book.  A seesaw pattern goes back and forth between two different patterns connected to the same topic.
• learned that we can write more than one sentence on each page.
• learned that all the pages in our pattern books need to be connected to the same topic.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

Last week during Math we:

• learned about calculators. 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• learned the word "attribute" and sorted blocks, and ourselves, by common attributes.
• played a game that helped us read two-digit numbers and locate them on a number grid.
• practiced interrupted counting...counting by tens then switching to ones (10, 20, 30, 31, 32, 33...).
• started a "Dot Card Museum" during math stations.  On a sticky-note, students record how many dots are on a card then attach it to the card.  When another child comes to the museum, he/she can check other students' work.  Right now, each dot on the card represents one.  As children become stronger with subitizing (automatically knowing how many dots there are) we will change the value of each dot to mean ten, five, or two.
  

Enjoy your weekend!
Katie