This week we celebrated our Pumpkin Morning! Thank you so much to all the volunteers who came out and helped us have a successful and fun-filled event! Students were actively engaged in various math based activities throughout the entire morning. We began our day by reading part of the book "How Many Seeds in a Pumpkin." Afterwards we took a class poll and voted on which pumpkin would have the most seeds (large, medium, or small). Students then recorded their own estimates to determine how many seeds were in each pumpkin. Each student made an estimate before seeing the seeds, and after seeing the seeds inside each pumpkin. Next week we will count the seeds and compare our estimates with the actual number of seeds! Later in the day we read the book "From Seed to Pumpkin" to learn how pumpkins grow! We discussed the life cycle of a pumpkin, and learned that pumpkins need three important things to help them grow. Ask your child if the can remember what these three things are!
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This week we settled into our first full week of RTI groups for reading. Students are doing a great job working in their independent book bags and practicing their sight words. We also continue to work on building numbers and writing the corresponding number sentence. One activity we played was a game called "snap it." In this math game students work with a partner to determine parts of a number. For example: Student A holds a stack of unifix cubes in front of them (the stack can be anywhere from 5-10 cubes) and student B identifies the number of cubes. Student A then puts the stack of cubes behind their back and snaps off some cubes and shows student B the new stack. Student B then must identify how many cubes student A snapped off. This is a great game to do at home. Instead of snapping cubes you can hide objects under a container! Cover all objects with the container and sneak some objects out. Have your child determine how many objects are still hidden under the container! Lastly this week finally harvested our vegetables from our first grade garden! Students picked tomatoes, weighed tomatoes, and measured tomatoes! We had beautiful weather for the event! This week was a fun filled week! Thank you to those of you who were able to make it to our Multi-Cultural Potluck Dinner! It was so nice to see so many faces and taste such delicious food from all over the world! This week we had lots of fun working with number stories and math game practice. Students have been working hard to keep our classroom noise level at student learning level by practicing their 6-inch voice. Each day, three "Decibella Awardees" are chosen for their participation in keeping our classroom at a just right volume. We even earned classroom points towards a class choice which was kickball on Friday (check out the photo of the class lined up at the back fence)! I was so impressed with how many kids were able to maintain a "I CAN, I WILL, I'll TRY" attitude towards trying something new.
This week we continued to work hard to make sure that we can work cooperatively and quietly. We practiced working with our "6 inch voices." Also, students have enjoyed taking a leadership role during our phonics instruction! During this time, students have a chance to volunteer to come in front of the class and lead our letter chants. Students also review previous letter sounds with the whole class. I am very impressed with how respectful all students are during this time! They are mini professionals! We have been working hard in room 3 during our classroom transitions! As a a class we have been earning points to work towards extra recess or a special activity determined by the class. We worked so hard this week that we earned those 10 points quickly. The class brainstormed ideas for a special activity and (after a classroom vote) the verdict was Drop Everything And Create (or DEC)! I was super impressed by all of our students' creativity. At the end of the day we were constructing, drawing, building, painting, and beading. We had one student create a plane out of recyclables, another create a backpack, and countless more creations! It was so much fun and I am sure there will be another day like this in our near future! |