This week in math ...

This week in math, we worked on numbers 1 through 5 again. The kids got to use linking cubes, play dough, dry erase markers and raccoon counters to practice their numbers in different ways.

Station 1: At their first station this week, the kids used raccoon counters to represent the number they read on their paper.

Station 2: Their second station this week was using the dry erase markers to practice tracing numbers and the words for their numbers. We were focusing on numbers 1 - 5, but if they got those down, I let them go on up to 20!

Station 3: At their third station for the week, the kids used play dough to make their numbers from 0 to 5. This took some skill, let me tell ya!

Station 4: At my table this week, we practiced working with linking cubes to build towers of 5 and take them apart in different ways. We showed the different ways we can make 5 by using 2 different colors of linking cubes.

At the end of math stations every day, we have one page of review that we do. They are doing awesome in their review books!

Reading and Writing Stations

Every afternoon, the kids have four different reading and writing stations that they rotate to and each day is different. By the end of the week, they have gone to 20 different stations! As soon as we get back in to the classroom from recess (and get our water and bathroom breaks out of the way) we start our alphabet song, and I let the kids pick a letter song they want to do until we start the alphabet. Then, we head over to the carpet for Buzz Book.

Buzz book is 2 sentences with different punctuation and the date, and a question that they answer either by writing it on our board or by talking with the people around them.

Tuesday's Buzz Book question was "How do you spell your name?" I let the kids go up to the board, as long as there was room, and write their names on the board. We talked about the importance of using a capital letter for the beginning of our names and lowercase letters for the rest of our names.

 

They have been doing a really good job finding all of our capital letters and different punctuation in our Buzz Book sentences.

Here are some other things the kids worked on this week.

The kids made pictures of their Grandparents for us to hang on our Grandparent's Day wall.

Cutting out letters and numbers to sort

Practicing tracing the alphabet

Practicing tracing straight, zig-zag and curvy lines

Finding the beginning of our second sentence

Finding the end of our second sentence

Finding a capital letter in one of our sentences

Finding a capital letter in one of our sentences

Matching rhyming words on our magnetic board

Cutting out letters and words to sort

Painting for our bookmarks!

Everyone worked so hard this week and are doing such an awesome job! I'm proud of you guys! :)

Our 5 Senses

This week in science we talked about observing things by using our 5 senses.

Tuesday, we talked about the different senses we have and how we use those senses during different parts of the day. The kids talked with partners about what they thought different people in different pictures were observing and what senses they were using to do their observing. After our discussion, we read the book My Five Senses by Aliki.

Wednesday, we watched a BainPOP on our senses. BrainPOP Jr. is one of the sights we use to watch videos on different subjects in class. There is a little girl names Annie and her robot friend named Mobi who help teach the kids through funny cartoons. Once we finished our BrainPOP, we did a "lab" (I call them labs) to test our understanding of our five senses and use descriptive words.

We used our sense of sight to look at our drink. It looked like a red liquid that had bubbles in it.

We used our sense of touch to feel our drink. It felt cold and wet.

We used our sense of smell to smell our drink. To some people, it smelled sweet like cherries, strawberries and watermelons. To others, it smelled sour like lemons and limes.

We used our sense of hearing to listen to what our drink sounded like. It made a ssssppppsssshhhhh sound from all of the bubbles in our cups. (They are much better at describing it than I am at typing it).

And FINALLY, we used our sense of taste to taste our drink. Some kids thought it tasted sweet like cherries and strawberries and a couple thought it tasted sour like lemons and limes. They all agreed that it was delicious! :)

First Week of School Science

Our first week of science was all about making observations. We spent time talking about magnifying glasses and looking at different things around the classroom and outside with them. 

Thursday, we took our magnifying glasses outside and observed different things in nature. When someone found something they thought was neat, I told them to grab it and we would take it inside to share with our groups.

There was a bug they were observing that was pretty interesting. This group stayed in that spot for a while. :)

She found a feather that "had holes in it, was soft and was grey and brown".

 

When we came back inside from observing nature on the playground, the kids got in their table groups and observed each others objects. I walked around and asked them what some of the different characteristics they noticed on their objects were.