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What a busy group we were last week. Read all about our exciting learning adventures below! 

Literacy

Last week, the children read books about weather. The children worked on describing the differences between nonfiction and fiction texts. They also worked with retelling stories including key details and asking questions. The children begin creating a RAN graphic organizer, which will help us organize our ideas about weather. We will categorize the information that we know and learn about weather over the next few weeks. Last week, we added sticky notes for What We Think We Know and Wonderings. We will continue to add to our organizer during Reading and Science for the next couple weeks. 

Grammar Notebooks:

We started grammar last week. The children worked with sentences. They focused on recognizing the difference between a complete and incomplete sentence and learned that all sentences must start with a capital and end with an ending mark. 

Writing:

Last week, the children begin the process of writing their very own small moment story. They brainstormed a list of small moments topics they would like to write about. They chose their favorite small moment and described it in detail to a table mate. This week, the children will begin writing about their favorite small moment in lots of detail. 

Math 

In Math, the children enjoyed explorations in math. They rotated through three stations: domino sorting ( learning that the dot patterns on dominos represent numbers), straight line dot to dot (using rulers), and estimating relative lengths of objects (sorting objects into two groups, smaller and larger than a six inch ruler).  

On Tuesday and Wednesday, the children explored pennies and nickels. They identified the characteristics of each coin and learned how to write their values. They enjoyed learning two poems:

Penny 

Penny, penny 

Easily spent

Copper brown

And worth one cent!

Nickel

Nickel, nickel

Thick and fat

You’re worth five cents

I know that!

The children also named values of different groups of pennies. They also counted groups of nickels and pennies and recorded the values in cent notation. The children worked with exchanging pennies for nickels. 

Science

This week, we began our first science unit. The children learned all about what a scientist does. We read the book, What Is a Scientist and worked together to create a chart listing everything that a scientist does. Then, the children created their own super scientist. Inside the lab jacket they wrote about what a scientist does. 

Later in the week, we started our unit on Weather. The scientists defined weather as, how the sky looks and feels. They learned that the main parts of weather are: temperate, sunlight, wind, clouds, and moisture.

The scientists learned about meteorologists. A meteorologist is a person who studies weather. The scientists researched about meteorologists using pebblego.com and by watching a weather report. The scientists became meteorologists themselves and took turns reporting the weather. 

Star Student

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

Royal Reader

Thank you to RoseMarie’s Mom, she joined us this week as our Royal Reader. The children enjoyed listening to two wonderful books, The Magic School Bus On the Ocean Floor and Llama Llama and the Bully Goat. 

Notes:

• If you are the adult coming to our pumpkin carving day please bring your diver’s license and plan to arrive a few minutes early. Everyone must have their license scanned before they can come down to our classroom. Our pumpkin carving day is October 23rd at 2:15. I look forward to seeing everyone next week!
• If your child’s purple poetry folder is still at home please send it back to school. They will need it this Friday to add a new poem!