Monday, December 15, 2014

Last week of the second quarter

These last few weeks have gone by so quickly! Here is a recap of our class happenings and objectives.

Thanksgiving Activities
The week of Thanksgiving, we participated in Thanksgiving themed centers.

We learned about how Thanksgiving today is different from the first Thanksgiving. For example, the Pilgrims and Native Americans were not able to just go to the grocery store when they needed food. To bring this idea to life, we put heavy cream into containers and shook them until it became butter. We then spread the butter on crackers. 



We also made turkey headbands and wrote the sight words we knew on the feathers.



And now on to what we've been working on for the past few weeks

Math
-identifying and describing 2D shapes (square, rectangle, triangle, circle, and hexagon). The emphasis has been on describing the shapes in regards to the number of vertices, and the number and length of their sides. For example, a rectangle has 4 vertices and 4 sides. Two of the sides are long and two of the sides are short.
-identifying and describing 3D shapes (cube, cone, sphere, and a cylinder).
Again, the emphasis has been on describing the shapes using vocabulary such as number of vertices, number and shape of faces, and the number of edges. For example, a cone has one vertice, 1 face shaped like a circle, and 1 curved edge. 
To support this objective at home, encourage your kiddo to identify 3D shapes at home. For example, the salt shaker is the shape of a cylinder. Cylinders have 0 vertices, 2 faces shaped like circles, and 2 curved edges. The soccer ball is shaped like a sphere. Spheres have 0 vertices, 0 faces, and 0 edges. 

Language Arts
-In writing we have introduced opinion pattern books. For example, I like kittens because they are soft. I like turtles because they have a shell. The students understand that in order to state an opinion, you must have the word because in your statement. As always, we continue to work on our writing conventions such as writing most letters correctly, using a capital letter at the beginning of the sentence, using mostly lowercase letters, sounding out unknown words, using sight words/spelling them correctly, spacing between words, and have a punctuation mark at the end of each sentence. 
-In reading, we continue to work on retelling a story in order. We have introduced vocabulary such as character and setting for the kiddos to use when retelling the story. 
-We also continue to work on our sight word mastery as the more words you know, the more books they can read
-We also continue to work on using one to one correspondence while reading, sounding out unknown words, and using picture clues to determine unknown words. 
To support these objectives at home, have your child read to you everyday day. Let them show you how smart they are by sounding out a word a recipe. Go to the library and choose a fun holiday book. Let your child identify all the sight words in the book.