Curriculum
Math
In Math this week we are working on Unit 2- this unit will last til the mid to end of October. The students are learning how to identify, label and count in hundreds, tens and ones. Something to practice at home is to sort items into groups of 10 to equal amounts greater than 100. How can you do this? Take out dry cereal or beans and dump them into a bowl or bag. Give your child small cups or containers to seperate the large amout into groups of 10. Provide them with a slip of paper that is titled leftovers. Once they have the items sorted by tens and leftovers have them go back and count how many in all. We are encouraging them to count by groups of 10 instead of going back and counting them individually. The leftover paper is equal to the ones group.
On the math learning center website there are also free apps and lessons you can do at home with your children to increase their understanding of place value.
Reading
This week we did not have a focus story with Junior Great Books. We will resume that on Monday September 28th. Instead this weeks focus was on Johnny Appleseed, his birthday is on Saturday. The reading standards introduced this week were how to read and retain information about a famous person. Another standard we tackled this week was how to research information from google in order to make a presentation. Be sure to have your child log in from home into their google account. You will be amazed how quickly they can log on and show you their google slides as well as their Pete the Cat document which they typed two weeks ago. Next week the stuents will be typing their second google document all about apples.
Writing - Personal narratives
This new program is a blast! Its so fun to see the kids be so amped up about seeing Writers Workshop on our schedule. For instance today the kids were asigned a 1-2 partner. This is their partner when we are teaching the mini lesson on the carpet before the children get a turn to write. We are working on their stamina in writing - they've already built up to 35 minutes! They are amazing kids - they literally sat today for 35 minutes straight writing and writing and writing.
When I referred to a mini lesson one of them this week was how to write a small moment story vs a laundry list.
Here is an example of a small moment story that we did today titled Fall. In Fall the trees are changing. The leaves on the tree can be red, orange and yellow. In the fall the fall the weather gets colder and the leaves start to fall off. We can rake up the leaves that have fallen off. I love the season of fall.
That is a simple example of a small moment story.
We are tyring to get the kids to move away from what the program refers to as a laundry list.
An example of a laundry list is as follows: In the fall I like to get pumpkins. I like to go to Apple Hill. I can go outside and play when it is colder. I also like to carve pumpins for Halloween.
These are great ideas but its not a proficient personal narrative. Instead this is what the students could write down in their seed notebook as a tiny topic to help them write a small moment story.
Take the time in the next couple of days to ask your child the difference betweeen a small moment story and a laundry list.
Social Studies
We have just finished our first social studies on civics. Remember we are bucket fillers in our class! Your children can share with you how they can fill a friends bucket each and everyday!