What have we been up to?

This month is flying!  It's hard to believe that Thanksgiving is only 2 weeks away.  We have busy little bees in the classroom working on building our understanding of numbers, becoming stronger readers and writers and even talking about the community we live in.  Below you'll find an update of what we've been up to.

Math

We began Unit 3 of our math program this week.  The children were introduced to the idea of what a double was and what wasn't a double.  To help with this understanding, Unifix cubes and a ten frame were used.  A handful of cubes were grabbed from a bag and placed onto the ten-frame, making pairs to determine if the number of cubes was a double or not a double.  This was a great activity to get the children to justify their thinking!  You'll find below an example of a double and an example of not a double.  This activity also became a new math station for the children to play.

The children were introduced to a new game: Butterfly Race.  In this partner game, the children race through the trees to the finish.  Partners take turns drawing a ten-frame card, determining how many dots are on the card, showing that number with their fingers, and looking to see if that numeral is on the next tree.  If it is, they can move their butterfly to the tree.  If it isn't, they need to wait for the next turn to try again.

I read the book Butterfly Countdown, which explores the concept of 1 less and counting backward. The children also acted out the story, first by pretending to be the butterflies, then by taking away Unifix cubes from a ten-frame mat.

Here are some new math stations that the children have been exploring during our math block.

Spill Ten Beans

In this game, each player gets their own recording sheet and 10 bean counters.  The player gently shakes the beans and spills them out.  He/she counts the beans that have turned up red.  Then, he/she traces and/or writes that numeral on the recording sheet.  Play continues until three columns are filled.

Pattern Block Puzzles

The children are working to find three different ways to cover a design using pattern blocks.


Writer's Workshop

We have wrapped up our first unit in Writer's Workshop: Launching the Writer's Workshop.  The children celebrated the end of unit by sharing one page of a piece of their writing.  The videos below give you a glimpse of how our celebration went.

This week and next week, we'll be writing like scientists.  We'll be making observations about some nature items that we have in our classroom.  We are learning more about labeling our pictures and writing about something we are noticing about the item and we will eventually be writing about something we are wondering about the item.

The pinecone is sticky.

The pinecone is brown and the sap is sticky.

The sap is gooey. 

Reader's Workshop

Reader's workshop is a time where the children get to work on becoming stronger readers.  During reader's workshop, my mini-lessons have been focusing on important procedures and expectations, elbow partners, and looking closely at the parts of a book.

Anchor charts (to the right) are introduced to help the children know the expectations and learn reading strategies.  Once an anchor chart is introduced, the children are given a copy of the chart to be placed in their I Can Read Binder, which is kept in their own book boxes.  This will allow the children to reference these charts during independent reading time.

Each day, the children have been building their stamina (doing something for a period of time without getting tired or distracted) around independent reading.  They've been "reading" books from tubs for 7-10 minutes.  During this time, they are practicing how to be a book lover and a respectful reader.

Lastly, here are some pictures from crazy hair and hat day.