News You Can Use!

Literacy 

Treasures:

This week, the children worked with variant vowel (oo) as in book. The children read stories about China. They worked with using illustrations, and rereading for comprehension. The children talked about how the illustrations helped them to better understand information about the characters and plot. This week, we also did a close reading activity where we focused on the rich vocabulary in the text, Tikki Tikki Tembo. The children did a fantastic job of choosing the rich vocabulary words to record on their vocabulary organizer. Then they filled in the meaning of the word and the strategy for how they found the meaning of the word. Below is a photo of the vocabulary organizer we used. 

Grammar Packets:

This week, the children learned that a sentence is made up of parts. They learned that the predicate of a sentence is the action part of the sentence. The predicate tells what the subject does or is. 

Writing

This week, the children started their last writing unit of the year, Expository Writing. The children worked with identifying fiction and nonfiction elements of a story. We read the story, Little Red Riding Hood, and a nonfiction text titled, Wolves. The children talked about what made, Little Red Riding Hood, fiction and what made, Wolves, a nonfiction text. Then, the children created their own fiction and nonfiction sentence about the same animal. They drew an illustration to support each sentence. They shared their writing with one another. 

Next week, the children will choose an animal of their choice to write their expository piece on. They will turn all of their animal research into a book at the end of the unit.

Math 

In Math, the children worked with fractional parts. They had to divide shapes into fractional parts and identify equivalent names for the fractional parts. The children also worked with comparing fractional parts and identifying the numerator and the denominator. Later in the week, they used manipulatives to model equivalent fractions, they used <,>, and = signs to to describe the relationships between fractions. 

On Thursday, the children were excited when our room once again turned into the set of a game show as we played Math Review Mimio Vote Unit 9. The children reviewed all the concepts they worked with during Unit 9 using their own clicker to answer questions. The children will have their Unit 9 assessment on Monday. 

Social Studies

This week, the children enjoyed exploring different topics during our unit on China. The children listened to excerpts from books and video clips to learn about education in China. The children recorded similarities and differences that they noticed between their school and the schools in China. They were very interested to learn that many Chinese children start the day by exercising.

The children also learned about homes in China. They looked at several photos, a video segment, and listened to book excerpts on homes in China. Ask your child to describe some of the different homes they learned about. 

On Friday, after listening to, The Seven Chinese Brothers, the children learned how to count from 1-10 in Chinese. They also created their own mini Chinese Number book. The children practiced writing the Chinese Characters for numbers 1-10. 

Teacher Appreciation Week

Thank you to all of you for making this week so special! I feel lucky to work with your children and you everyday. Thank you for all the yummy treats and thoughtful gestures this week! They were appreciated!

Happy Mother’s Day!

 Have a great rest of the weekend!