Happy Fall!

Fall is officially among us! 

This week's focus: Rhyme and Repetition.

Below read alouds, such as Brown Bear, Brown Bear, are predictable texts which helps students retell stories.

Read Alouds: 

   

 

Fundations:(Phonics) 

On Wednesday, we began our phonics program to help learn letters and sounds. The students met "Mama Echo" and "Baby Echo", Fundations' owl mascots. We learn about the Sky line, Plane line, Grass line, and worm line on our writing grids. The students explored white boards and dry erase markers. We even practiced how to sit correctly in a chair for writing and how to hold a pencil.  The pencil grip is very important! The students know to pinch the pencil or marker between their thumb and pointer finger and rest the pencil on the other three fingers, like a table.  

Next week we will talk about the letters T, B, and F. You should receive more information as we progress through the program. 

 

ELA: 

After Fundations, students work on various literacy based centers. These centers are comprised of poetry, phonemic awareness, phonics, writing, and even art! In the beginning of the year, students were assigned a table and rotated as a whole class to each center.  However, this week the students learned how to move from center to center on their own based on their "work board" assignments.  

Our Work Board displays 4 students groups with 4 students in each group.  Each group follows a predetermined center path. For example the "red group" follows the path Poetry, Art, writing, and Phonics. While the "Blue group" follows the path: Writing, Phonics, Art, and Poetry.  This helps students move from table to table without over crowding one center. I will try to post a picture of our work board for you to have a visual.

Our centers this week included:

Brown Bear Dot Glue

Rhyming Worksheets

Name Writing Practice

Guided Writing Journal-I am special because and I am ___ Years old.

Poetry: Colors Poem, Responding to a poem activity

Rainbow Name Writing, Hidden Name Writing

Rhyme 

Brown Bear, Brown Bear Retelling Puppets
Tissue Paper Fall Leaves

Math: 

Your child is learning to compare numbers from 0 to 5. During this unit, he/she will learn to compare sets of objects to identify if one group has more, fewer, or the same amount as the other group. We will also explore how to order numbers from 0 through 5.

This week we compared groups by matching each object from one group with an object from a second group, then deciding which group has more, fewer, or if the groups have the same number. 

Thanks for all of your support with the number formation homework. The assignment has helped with students'  number writing and will help support them in their future math assignments.

Additional News:

-We Practiced our Fire Drill and learned about Fire Safety

-Our library day was rescheduled for Thursday this week, Mr. Murphy was out on Monday. We will continue our regularly scheduled Library day next week. 

-Our Class Book 16 Apples up on Top is being sent home to one child a night. Please keep an eye out for this book in your child's backpack. We ask that you read the book with your child and then return the book the following day to be shared with another student/family! It may take a while for us to get through everyone so we appreciate your patience. 

-We visited the computer lab on Friday! The students met Mr. Donoff, the computer teacher and learned about the parts of a computer.

-We continue to follow classroom rules and routines to earn prizes. Soon we will incorporate a classroom goal to earn a whole class reward.

-October Scholastic Book Orders were sent home. Please consider purchasing books for your child. Your purchases help earn free books for our classroom! Orders can be done online and are due on October 23rd.

-During our morning "Free choice" activities, students are working on fine motor activities, coloring, math skills, and unfinished work. 

-This week students sat with a "Snack Buddy" during snack.  They are working on their speaking and listening skills (asking questions, looking at the person when they are talking, taking turns,etc.).

-Rain=Indoor Recess. Although being inside all day is not ideal...Room 5 has a block and kitchen area for dramatic play. Students even made fuse beads, puzzles, and other fun games. 

-We used Glow Sticks to practice "sky writing"! The kids loved turning off the lights and becoming Sky Writers (Superheroes who write their letters) to practice writing the Letter T.

-On Thursday, Mrs. Johnson came to our pod to read us a story and talk about being a community. 

Shake Breaks!!

Next Week:

-School Pictures are scheduled for Friday, October 9th. Picture Forms went home Monday in folders. Please let us know if you did not get a form. 

-Fun Fall activities, including Halloween, will be our theme for October.

-Our next Phonemic Awareness skill will focus on Syllables.

-Library will be on Monday and Computers on Friday afternoon.

-In math, we will continue to compare groups of objects and talk about order of numbers. 

Have a Great Weekend!