THIS WEEK...

*  We had a wonderful week. We enjoyed a wonderful field trip to Four Town Farm. Children met author, Sarah Albee. We alSO started working with our first vowel: the letter A.  Check out the photos page to see some of these exciting moments within our class. I hope you enjoy.


LANGUAGE ARTS:

We discussed vowels and consonants.  We reviewed the vowels and sounds and included y as sometimes a vowel. Children are becoming more aware of the difference between vowels and consonants. We briefly discussed how vowels can make a long vowel and short vowel sound and how every word must have a vowel in it. We will be focusing on short vowel sounds. Next week I will introduce word families. We will continue to work with the letter a and begin with short a word families: am  and at. 

We practice:
a apple /a/
e egg (or eddy) /e/
o olive /o/
u upper /u/
i itchy /i/

*Writers' workshop  - reviewed rules and format of writer's workshop. Children are encourage to work busily until time is up and to continue to add detail. Children wrote about their field trip. 
*Letter A - short and long sounds. 
*Children listed a words, searched for a words for our a collage, practiced with worksheets, listened for /a/ in speech and text, and recognized a in text.
*Handwriting - lowercase a is a magic c letter meaning it starts as a c formation and turns into an a. 
*Listened for /a/ in the beginning and middle of words.


WRITING:
* Weekend News Journal
*Writers' Workshop
*Pumpkin descriptions


MATH:
*continued practic with numbers up to 10.
*comparing size, weight, and height.  Children compared pumpkins and as a group, we ordered the pumpkins smallest to largest. 
*we discussed measuring tools such as a ruler and inches. We measured pumpkin heights with unifix cubes. 
*children weighed their pumpkins and recorded their findings.
*Daily calendar activities.
*Snap It - a newly introduced math game in which children have to recognize two cards having the same quantity of items arranged in different ways. The first person to recognize the match snaps or claps and wins the pair of cards.

TECHNOLOGY:
*Kid Pix
*Lexia


SCIENCE:

*Farm life and crops - Children were very great listeners during our trip to Four Town Farm.
They learned about the three parts of a plant: root, stem, and leaf. 
Why strawberries are called strawberries
How the farmers keep the crows and deer away from their corn crops. 
What the three things are that  plants need to grow... and much more.



After our field trip, children looked at a variety of veggies given to us from our tour guide, Farmer Ted. Some children sketched pictures. We also read, Tops and Bottoms a story about a clever and sneaky rabbit who outwits a lazy bear by claiming the best part of different crops: tops, bottoms, and middles. We read the book and discussed the variety of veggies, how they grow, and what part we eat. Then we referred to the veggies he had been given.

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