What a Week!

Well that was certainly an unexpected way to end our week!  I just want to let you know how wonderfully your children dealt with our no power situation at school.  They were so flexible with our plan for the morning and just went with the flow!  We tried to keep our same routines and even managed to do math and Fundations!  Of course, we had had some practice working in the dark the day before during our Halloween Lights Out Reading Party!  On Thursday afternoon, the children grabbed their book boxes and a flashlight and found a cozy spot in the room to do some partner reading.  It was so fun to watch them all pointing to words, talking about pictures, and re-reading books!  As they read, they also munch on our trail mix snack.  Thank you to all the families who sent in the snacks for our trail mix....it was delicious!

At Reader's Workshop, we continue to read "Old Favorite" books.  Old Favorites are books we have heard over and over again and know how the story goes without even reading the words.  Examples of "Old Favorites" for us are Brown Bear, Brown Bear, Three Billy Goats Gruff, Bear Snores On,
Caps for Sale, and The Carrot Seed.  We have been reading and re-reading these books:  looking at the pictures, remembering how the story goes, and telling what happens on the pages.    If you have any of these books at home, ask your child to read it to you!

Also, this week the children got their own "Brown Owl, Brown Owl" book for their book boxes!  It is based on Brown Bear, Brown Bear, but with a Halloween twist!  This book had some of our new sight words (I, see, a) which made it easy to read!  We practiced pointing and touching each word as we read.  This is a great skill for your child to use when reading at home with you too!  In Fundations, we were introduced to the letters g and a.  We practiced handwriting and brainstormed words that have those letters as initial sounds. We are almost halfway through the alphabet!

In math, we learned about using tally marks as a way to count.  We practiced counting and making tally marks using popsicle sticks first and then played a game of Tally Mark Bingo to practice counting and recognizing tally marks. We also did some work with shapes and patterns and made a  paper Spider Quilt.  Each child was responsible for making two paper quilt blocks.  We attached them all together in a pattern and then made observations and noticings about the shapes and patterns in our quilt. Be sure to ask your child what he or she noticed!  We also had two new Work Places:  Beat You to Ten and Counting Spiders.  Ask your child how to play these games!

Lastly, in our community unit we read a book called Windows which tells the story of a young boy who goes out for a walk at night and looks at what is going on at the houses in his neighborhood community.  We talked about neighborhoods as a community and that family is also a community.  Each child then started a pop-up picture of his or her home! We will finish these house creations next week!

Have a great weekend!