News You Can Use!

Literacy

Treasures: 

This week, the children worked with long /a/ (a_e). On Monday they enjoyed searching for the hidden long /a/ words in a word search. The children were excited when they found words that were not on the given list of words.

The children read stories about friends. The selections this week were made up of nonfiction, fantasy, and realistic fiction pieces. They worked with making and confirming predictions. We used a graphic organizer to chart our predictions throughout the text and then recorded the actual events as we read the story. 

Grammar Packets:

This week, the children were introduced to verbs. They learned that a verb is a word that shows action. The children enjoyed playing a game of Verb Charades to introduce them to different verbs. It was a great kinesthetic exercise and helped the children make the connection that verbs are action words. 

Writing:

This week, we continued working on our letter writing unit. The children learned how to write a thank you letter. Together as a class, we wrote a thank you letter to Mrs. Lane and Mrs. Kelly in the office. The children thanked Mrs. Lane and Mrs. Kelly for all the wonderful things they do for us on a daily basis. 

Later in the week, the children practiced writing their own thank you letters. They are doing a great job of remembering the five parts of a letter (heading, greeting, body, closing, signature). The children are working very hard on their letter writing and remembering to write each of the parts in the correct space.  

Reindeer Application:

After listening to the book, Who Will Guide My Sleigh Tonight?, the children were very excited to learn that Santa was in need of a new reindeer. Each child applied to the position by filling out a reindeer application. They wrote about why they would make a good reindeer. To go along with their writing the children also turned themselves into a reindeer, complete with antlers and a shiny red nose. 

Math 

In Math, the children worked on measuring with a tape measure. They measured different body parts to the nearest inch. On Tuesday, the children enjoyed 3 Explorations: exploring shapes on the geoboard, building structures with base ten blocks, and measuring and plotting their height. 

On Wednesday, the children worked on telling time to the quarter-hour. Using their tool kit clocks, they showed time to the nearest half-hour and quarter-hour. The children also practiced telling and recording different times. On Thursday, the children enjoyed learning about timelines. Together, we created a timeline of our school year so far. We ordered important events on the timeline. 

Social Studies

This week, we continued our Winter Holidays unit. The children learned about how people celebrate Hanukkah and Christmas. We read several books, used a holiday powerpoint, and Pebble Go to research each of the holidays. After learning about the traditions and celebrations for each holiday, the children wrote about the holidays in their Holiday Traditions book. They will bring home their book to share with you at the start of winter break. 

On Wednesday, after learning about Hanukkah, the children enjoyed making a dreidel. While making the dreidel, they listened to and learned the dreidel song. The children also learned how to play the dreidel game.  

Star Student

Oliwia was our star student this week. Thanks Oliwia for sharing all about you!

Royal Reader

A special thank you to Oliwia’s Mom, she joined us this week as our Royal Reader. The children loved listening to the three stories that Mrs. Lesniak read, Fancy Nancy Bonjour Butterfly, The Three Little Aliens and the Big Bad Robot, and Edward the Emu.

Have a great rest of the weekend!