Week of January 8th

Here are a few pictures of our Winter party. I want to thank all of the parents who helped to organize and help out with the party. The kids had SO much fun!

Here are the kiddos opening their present from me.

We had a great week back at school!

In shared reading we practiced using background knowledge to help us understand the story better.

Reading

In literacy stations we worked on:

In word work we are practicing sight words by spelling them using many different materials, stamps, writing them in rainbow words, playdough and wikisticks.  

In writing we worked on labeling, writing a list, writing a card, or writing a story.  

In star station this week the kids made a resolution of what they would like to learn or do in 2016.  They wrote their resolution on a balloon that we put out in the hallway on the bulletin board.  The kids came up with great things that they wanted to do or learn this year!

In the math station the kids practiced numbers to 20 by forming the numeral with play dough and forming that many play dough balls to add to the 20's frame.  

At the smartboard station the kids did word searches with sight words.  

Writing

We started a new writing unit this week and the kids are really enjoying the change of pace!

We are writing non-fiction books (All About books).  The kids pick a topic that they know all about and write one fact on each page.  We are practicing coming up with a topic, sketching our facts across pages, and then writing the words.  

Word Work

This week we started learning about secret stories... the secrets in the way we spell things (digraphs, blends, spelling patterns, silent e, etc).  This week we learned about the digraphs th and sh.  We came up with words that had the digraphs in it and practiced stretching out the sounds and writing the sounds we heard.  We also practiced putting the words we came up with into silly sentences.  

Math

We are continuing to work on numbers to 20 this week in math.  We did inventory bags with items up to 20.  The kids had to count the items, write the number and represent the number using pictures.  

We are working on cooperating with each other and made Synergy Snowmen.

I heard great conversations between the kids where they were using kind words to ask for help or disagree with their group.  We overcame many problems by using words and listening to others.