The Snow is Melting!

What a beautiful day!  We have waited a long time, but the snow is finally melting and gone in many places.  Our playground looks like a whole new place.  You can see the wood chips!  Spring is in the air. 

During Reading Workshop these past two weeks we:

• added "was"  and "little" to our word wall.
• reviewed using Skippy Frog (skipping an unknown word) and Flippy Dolphin (flipping the vowel sound) as strategies for reading unknown words.
• learned that readers reread the same book multiple times so they can make their reading sound more fluent.  We spent a couple days working on this as a class.
• learned to read like the punctuation tells us to read.  We learned about commas, question marks, exclamation points, and periods.
• reviewed the sounds for w, y, and r, as these are sounds many children have been confusing. 
• read with our first grade reading buddies.

During Writing Workshop we:

• learned that writers can think of something they like or dislike and write an opinion piece.
  
  
  
  
• learned that we can support our opinions with multiple reasons.
• learned that writers can write to try to persuade others to do/get something.
• learned to support our persuasive letters with multiple reasons. 
• listened to two different versions of The Three Little Pigs, one from the pigs' perspective and one from the wolf's perspective, then wrote an opinion piece about who we believe.
  
  
  
  
• learned to end an opinion/persuasive letter by restating what we believe.

Next week, we will begin All-About books.

During Math we:

• brought spring to our classroom by making papers flowers with different combinations of ten written on the flowers.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• practiced writing number models.
• created and wrote our own number stories.
• learned about place value. 
• created movement patterns and represented them with symbols.
• practiced counting a collection of craft sticks by groups of ten and additional ones.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  

During Science we:

• learned that clay is an earth material made up of even smaller rock particles than silt.
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
• learned that without light, nothing can be seen.  The kindergarten teachers set up a "cave" that was completely dark.  Inside the cave, we placed three different paper people: a white, black, and silver.  Before entering the dark cave, the children predicted which paper person they would be able to see.  They entered the cave and searched for the people then exited and recorded their observations.  Next, they went into the cave with a flashlight and searched for the paper people again.  The children learned that a light source is needed to be able to see any of the people, even the silver one.  This was such an engaging learning opportunity for the children!

Thank you for encouraging your child to read at home each night.  I hope you've been excited to watch the growth of your little reader.

Happy Passover, Easter, and Weekend!
Katie