Story Map

We worked all week on making a story map after each read aloud as a whole group. I wrote and the children told me who the characters where, the setting, problem and solution of each story. On Friday I read "The Rainbow Fish" and then they had to make their own story map. Of course not every student could write the sentences so I would talk with them to make sure the understood the concept and had them draw a detailed picture.

Symmetry

We focused on symmetry, equal not equal and half and whole this week in math. The children worked in groups to make a graph of equal and not equal pictures. They also used gold fish to make a fair share using Deanna Jump's penguin activity. We had already done this before as a whole group but this time I made a booklet and the children had to get in pairs and use a dice to finish the book together. On Friday I read Curious George Flies a kite and the children made symmetrical kits. They really caught on to this concept and did an excellent job all week.

To make the kites I just gave each table scraps of construction paper left over and let them cut the shapes. I had showed them how to make them the same but cutting them together, they thought I had done magic and were so excited about that. When I see them get all excited about something so simple it truly makes me smile and love my job.

At the beginning of the year I get permission from the parents to use their children's pictures on the blog and some parents said no so that is why some faces are covered with their kites. They all love their picture taken and it's hard to explain why I don't take some of their pictures so I find it easier to just cover them up with their work, they love it because they can still see themselves when I show them the blog.

Stars

We studied stars and constellations this week.

Skip Counting

We have counted by five's and ten's during calendar for months but I introduced counting by two's this week using mittens. On Friday we used teddy bears and the children worked in groups skip counting by 2's, 5's and 10's. We also made mittens and made a skip counting book.

The Mitten

We worked all week on "The Mitten", I just love Jan Brett. This is the first time the children made lapbooks, so there not that cute or colorful. I was trying them out to see if the children could make them and if they were useful. I definitely like them and will have the children make these again using other subjects.

Blog

I strive very hard to be organized and found a great blog to help me in my quest. She has really great ideas, check her out.

http://littlestlearners.blogspot.com/

Penguins

We started our unit by making this chart then we added to all week.

In math we made equal shares of fish.



We also made a tree map.



Here are some pictures of us working on our cover for the book.




Thanks to Mrs. Jump and Mrs. Larremore for their excellent units on penguins.

Penguins

We studied penguins this week and finished Friday by making our own books. The children did such a great job on these, I was really proud of their hard work. Some of the pages we did whole group then then did it at their table on their own, some where copied after we did them because I wanted to make sure they were getting the spelling correct to use for the story. On Friday they had to write the story by themselves using their graphic organizers they made on the previous days.