We've been busy the last three weeks. Check out some of what we've been up to...
More Egg-cellent Egg-speriments
To finish up our balance unit in Discovery the children were given the challenge to balance an egg on a wall, the same challenge that was impossible at the beginning of the unit. However, with our knew knowledge this task was more feasible. Children used weighted bottoms and counter balances to get their eggs to stay on the wall.
Air Is All Around
After finishing our balance unit, we started a new unit on air and wind. Our first experiment taught us that air is around us and takes up space. We took an empty cup and placed a paper towel inside. When we pushed the cup straight down into a container of water, the paper towel stayed dry. However, if we tipped the cup air bubbles came out and water went in wetting the paper towel. This demonstrated this tricky concept and began our exploration of this topic.
Games Help Us Grow
In Math we have been playing games to help us work on composing and decomposing numbers, the early skills required for conventional addition and subtraction. One of the first games we played was "Collect 15". In this game children rolled a die with 1-3 and added chips until they reached 15. In another game, "Double Compare", children had to combine two pairs of cards to see who had more.
We returned to a familiar game, "Roll and Record". This game requires children to roll two dice and put the numbers together. We talked about strategies for putting their numbers together, such as starting with the higher number and counting on.
Finally, we learned a game called "Build It, Remove It". Children selected a card and placed that many chips on a ten frame. Children then rolled a die with 1-3 and had to remove that number to find the final number. This game helps introduce subtraction in a fun and engaging way.
New Month, New Learning
Now that we have finished our march through each letter of the alphabet in Reading, we have begun to dive a little deeper into letters and sounds. We learned about vowels, and which letters are the vowels. We learned that vowels can be at the begging, middle, or even end of a word. We also learned that vowels can have a short or long sound, where the vowel says it's name. This week we learned about our first digraph, ch. We talked about how these two letters work together to make a new sound. Finally, for May we have a new author/illustartor of the month, Leo Lionni. We will read some of his books and make our own version of one of his stories.
In Handwriting we are also taking a closer look at letters. We practiced writing the vowels, and have now returned to lowercase letters. We will learn about different categories of lowercase letters and how to form them correctly. Our first category is the tall letters: h, b, d, t, l, f, and k. We will continue until we have practiced the whole alphabet.
TEAMmates Don't Tease
We have continued to explore important social-emotional concepts during TEAM Meeting. We read Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes to initiate a conversation about teasing. In this wonderful story, Chrysanthemum is teased by her classmates about her name. We defined teasing as saying something meant to hurt someone's feeling. We also discussed what to do if you or a friend are being teased. |
Spring Has Finally Sprung
It may be a little hard to believe, but it finally feels like spring! We've been enjoying the nicer weather outside during Outdoor Explore and Recess. We also made daffodils to give to someone special.
Ladybug Learning
We have also begun a new thematic unit on ladybugs! This unit crosses all curriculum areas including Reading, Writing, Math, and Discovery. We are very excited to raise our very own ladybugs in the classroom. They arrived as larvae, the second stage in a ladybugs life. We have been observing them as they grow and change. We have also begun an observational journal to help us record our learning.
In Math we did a ladybug word problem that both challenged our math skills and also helped us learn about the body parts of a ladybug. We also played a dice rolling ladybug- themed game that reinforced some of the math concepts we've been working on.
Ready for Reasearch
The big component of this unit is the creation of a ladybug report in Writing. Along with tying in to our "all about" books, we will learn about what researchers do. The first thing we did was to make chart with sections for "what we think we know", "we were correct", and "new learning". We brainstormed facts we think we know about ladybugs and filled in the first section. Next we talked about how researchers prove facts, and after reading an informational text moved some of our facts to the "we were right" section. Finally, the children have been completing a series of rotations through four ladybug resource stations. The stations each allow the children to explore one form of research resources: videos, pictures, books, and models. They record their finds for the research journal and add new facts to our chart in the "new learning" section. We will continue next week so the children have done each station.
Check out some more pictures from the last three weeks...