A Review of Our Week

This week the letters b and f were introduced during Fundations. The children worked hard at practice writing the letters in the sky, on their whiteboards, and in their notebooks. We also had fun finding our new letters in our morning messages through out the week and circling them. On Wednesday we brainstormed words that began with the letters t and b. Take a look at what we came up with.





During math this week, we continued to explore pattern blocks, geoboards, polydrons, unifix cubes, and bugs. We also sorted shape cards by various attributes. On Thursday, we had our first math studio lesson (with 9 adults watching me and Claire Early, my instructor, teach a lesson). During this lesson, we were saying good bye to our shapes using the attribute cards (curved sides, 3 corners, and large). The children were amazing during this lesson and all the adults in the room were very impressed with how well they listened and how well they justified their answers! Also during this lesson, we practiced a mathematician dyad (math talk). A dyad supports the development of student-to-student interaction and gives students opportunities to listen to their partner. When children work in a dyad, the math-talk:

ALWAYS begin with a private think time about the task
ALWAYS focuses on each child's mathematical reasoning, sense making, representations and justifications
ALWAYS ends with a discussion of ways their ideas are the same and/or different
ALWAYS follows a prescribed structure

My goal is to use the Flip Camera to record what a dyad looks like in our classroom for you to view.

As we entered a new month on Friday, we began making our new calendar pieces. Make sure to ask your child what bugs he or she made for the month of October. On Monday, the children will get to choose the pattern for this month. Stay tuned this week to see what we chose!

On Monday, we began learning about apples. After reading the book Apples by Gail Gibbons, the children illustrated the life cycle of an apple tree on paper. We also began illustrating the seasons of an apple tree using paper, crayons, and tissue paper.

Carolyn Tatlock, the guidance counselor, came in on Tuesday to do her first guidance class with the children. She talked to them about feelings, identifying feelings in our faces and how it looks like in our bodies. She also taught them a Calm Down song.

Here are some pictures that I've taken in the last couple of weeks that I wanted to share.

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