A Little Recap of Our Week

We had a wonderful 4 days together!  The children are settling in nicely and are feeling comfortable with our classroom routines.  Here is a peek of what went on in the classroom this past week.

Number Corner

Number Corner is our interactive calender piece of our Bridges math program.  Each day the children predict what will be on that days calendar marker, which is often a pattern of some sort.  This month's pattern is dealing with shapes, which includes shapes in our world.  For example, on Thursday the calendar marker had a clock on it, which is in a shape of a circle.  The children also keep track of how many days we've been in school using ten-frames, links, and a number line.  This is an excellent way to show multiple representations of numbers!  We also have an interactive number line, which we use for counting forwards, backwards, and even predicting what numbers are missing in a sequence of numbers.  When we use this particular number line, we have a special helper come and help us: Hap the Happy Hopper (a grasshopper).  See if your child can sing the song that Hap shared with us this week or even ask them who Hap is.

Math

This week we began our math program.  Our lessons focused on noticing attributes of shoes and sorting shoes into similar groups (laces and no laces or sneakers and not sneakers).  The children were excellent detectives when having to notice similarities and differences between the shoes!

The children were introduced to math stations this week.  During math stations, they get to work in small groups to explore manipulatives,  and play and complete activities to reinforce concepts being taught.  This week, the children were introduced to and explored polydrons, pattern blocks, unifix cubes, and geoboards. 

Theme

We've been learning about monarch butterflies, which included reading books and actually observing real life monarch caterpillars (thanks to Addie for bringing them in!).  Currently, we have a monarch caterpillar who has changed into a chrysalis and another caterpillar who has been very hungry eating milkweed leaves.  See if your child can tell you the life cycle of the monarch butterfly.  Or better yet, see if they can act it out for you! 

Friendships

We completed several activities involving our names this week.  I will post more on our activities this coming week as we finish up some projects.


On Tuesday and Wednesday, we had a great discussion about our differences and excepting those differences.  We read the book It's Okay to Be Different.  The children were then asked to complete the sentence "It's okay to ___________."  The children then drew a self-portrait of themselves.  On Wednesday, I brought in a brown egg and a white egg.  The children shared what was different and what was the same about these eggs.  Then, I asked the question "What about the inside of the eggs?  How would they be different and how would they be the same?"  Most children thought that there would be chicks inside the white egg and I was told that the brown eggs you eat.  They were surprised when I broke open the white egg and there was no chicks!  The children immediately noticed that the inside of both eggs were exactly the same.  So, we had a discussion about how we may look different on the outside, but on the inside we were the same just likes the eggs!

IPADS

This week the children explored the IPADS.  We learned how to be responsible with the IPADS and explored an app called Doodle Buddy.  We will be using this app often throughout the school year for different projects. 

Mrs. Tatlock

Mrs. Tatlock, our guidance counselor, came into the classroom on Friday to teach the children about feelings.  They learned about clear mind, sparkle mind, and mud mind.  See if your child can give you examples of each of these minds.  For example, when we are excited about a birthday party, we may be in sparkle mind.  She introduced a special friend to the class; Pumsey, which will be joining her when she comes to the classroom for the next several weeks.  She showed them pictures of individual children and the class needed to decided if the child was in clear, sparkle, or mud mind.  After this activity, she read the book The Way I Feel.  Mrs. Tatlock concluded her session by showing the children belly breaths.  See if your child can show you what a belly breath is. 

We also had a special guest reader on Friday.  Mr. Nardelli, one of our principals, read a book to our class along with Mrs. Dyer's class.  It was all about school and thinking about what we hope to learn this school year. 

Wow!  We were busy.  I hope everyone has enjoyed their weekend and is rested up for our first 5 days of school we have coming up this week.  See you on Monday!