We started literacy centers today! Post a comment about your favorite center or what you did during centers today.
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This week we focused on the w sound. We talked about the sound that w makes. We made a list of words that have the w sound in the beginning, middle, or end of the word. The students wrote their words on a paper plate watermelon. We read the story "I Wonder" together as a class and went on a word hunt for w words. To conclude the lesson the students were able to enjoy a yummy piece of watermelon! We had a great time working with the story Hey, Little Ant!! First, the class made predictions and asked thoughtful questions about the story before reading. Next, I read the story to the class. It is an adorable story about a boy who is deciding between stepping on an ant or letting it go free. The two characters are having a conversation back and forth trying to convince the other why their opinion is the right one. The ending of the story gets the kids thinking: " Should the ant get squished? Should the ant go free? It's up to the boy, not up to me. We'll leave the boy with the raised up shoe. What do you think the boy should do?" We worked together to compare and contrast the two characters in the story the boy and the ant by using a venn diagram. The class brainstormed reasons why the boy should squish the ant and why the boy should save the ant. During writing on Monday and Tuesday we talked about what it means to persuade. The students learned the steps to writing a persuasive piece. We used an oreo cookie as an analogy for the steps used in our writing. The top of the oreo is where we state our opinion. The white middle represents all of the reasons to support our opinion. Finally, we need to close up our writing with a conclusion. The students did an awesome job persuading the boy to squish or save the ant! In science we continued to talk about ants. We read a nonfiction book and watched a video about ants. We made a book about how ants get the basic needs of all living things; food, water, air, shelter, living space. Play the link below to hear the story Hey, Little Ant. We are reading The Falcon's Feathers. We have read two chapters. In the story, Josh has found a falcon's nest, but when he shows the nest to Dink and Ruth Rose, the baby falcons are gone. What happened to the falcons? Did another animal take them? Did they fall from the nest? Did a person take them? Please ask your child to make either a prediction or ask a question and write their prediction/question as a comment on this blog post. We are excited to see what they are predicting and wondering about as we read and think it will be fun for the students to see their friends' responses! In math the class has been working on counting, writing, and reading the numbers from 1-120. We played a variety of games with partners or in small groups to practice these skills. We enjoy having the students rotate in math centers. This gives us the opportunity to meet with small groups and work on the skills that they need.
This week we learned about the sound of hard th. The students practiced putting their tongue between their teeth, making the sound, and feeling their throat vibrate. We made a list of hard th words and wrote them on feathers to make hard th hats. We also read a collection of sentences and highlighted the hard th words to practice finding the words in our reading. Every student brought home a feather at the end of the day to remind them what we learned. We read the simple, yet great story Feathers for Lunch and used the book for several activities. (Yes, we tend to really love to follow a theme so feathers in the title with a th is a major reason we selected this book). We made predictions and asked questions while reading, of course. We worked on using commas in a series of three or more in our writing. Their writing prompt was "I would not want feathers for lunch. I would want...." and they needed to write three or more foods they would like using commas in their series. We were hungry after talking about all the delicious foods! In the afternoon, we used the book in science to talk about how living things have basic needs including food. We talked about how the cat was trying to eat the birds to meet his basic need of food. (He never catches the birds and only gets to eat feathers for lunch). So we just had to make a cat puppet with feathers in his mouth! On Friday, we spent more time talking about the Ohio plants and birds in the story and how they meet their basic needs in the Ohio habitats. We will continue this next week as well. We added a fun informational site about birds on our Student Links page. They love listening to the different songs of each bird. We also read Feathers and Fools by Mem Fox and I modeled the clarifying strategy while reading. We identified the characters, setting, and theme of this story and had a wonderful discussion about how we can show kindness to others even when they are different from us. This week we learned about the sound of sh! Together we brainstormed a collection of words that begin and end with sh. The students filled up a turtle shell with these words. I read the story Moving Day to the class. This is an adorable story about a hermit crab who searches the ocean floor for the perfect new home. After reading the story the students drew a picture of the story character and setting on a shell. To complete our study of sh each student received a shell to take home. We hope they told you all about it! We read one of my favorite books because of the great lesson it teaches: Stand in My Shoes. (Yes, we selected this book because of the sh is shoes)! This is a wonderful book about a little girl,Emily, who learns what empathy means and spends a day finding ways to show empathy to the people she comes in contact with: her dad, friends at school, her teachers, her sister, and her mom. At the end of the story, she explains that "When I care enough to notice how others feel, something changes inside of me." We used the asking questions and predicting comprehension strategies before and during reading. After reading, students completed a story map to show the characters, setting, and theme of the story. To tie this lesson into writing, students had two different writing prompts. For the first one, they had to think of three places they have been literally in their shoes. We reviewed nouns as places in order to make our list. Then I taught students how to use commas when writing with a series of 3 or more. Each student wrote a sentence with three of their favorite places they have been and used commas. For the second assignment, the students had to look for an opportunity where they could show empathy by tomorrow's writing lesson. When we started the writing lesson on Friday, I was so touched at how many were bursting with excitement to share their stories of how they showed empathy to someone. They really understood the message! So, students wrote about their experience. We will share these with each other this week.
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