Workshop Rundown: 10/9

The kids put together cut up HFW sentences using little animals as the noun.  We learned that sentences begin with an uppercase letter and end with a period.  This was a fun and challenging activity.  You can try this at home too!

This week, we reviewed the two sounds of A by sorting long and short A picture cards.  After sorting, the kids could write the words if they had time.

We explored animal apps on the iPads.  A favorite was Explore the Animal Kingdom Free where you can hear the sound different animals make.

Our new book this week is This Is.  We have 6 new words!  The green words (they can be sounded out) are:  it, six, yes.  The red words are:  no, this, my.  Be sure to tap and swipe these words at home!

The kids wrote a Zoo book using photographs we took on our trip.  Everyone had fun reliving our field trip and writing about their favorite animals.

In the Science Lab, the kids matched animals and continents.  They also used the light table to examine animal x-rays.  That's a baby kangaroo on the top left of the table if you were wondering.

Fun at the Zoo!

Workshop Rundown: 10/1

 Everyone took turns telling the story Goodnight Gorilla.  Reading doesn't mean reading words.  Pictures tell stories too.  This activity strengthened story telling skills.

 HFW Go Fish was a great game.  This was such a fun way to practice the words.  You can make this game at home too!  Do you have "she"? 

 The vowels sounds are very tricky!  We practiced by making a version of our classroom vowel chart.

 After writing about favorite zoo animals, the kids created them using torn paper.  No scissors for this one, just your hands, brain, and a glue stick!  They turned out so nice that we hung them in the hallway for all to admire.

 The Brilliant Bug Bites snack was a big hit this week.  We measured our ingredients and took the snack to the zoo.  Yum!  The bonus was 3 gummy worms that were added using tweezers!

After making the snack, the group worked on a world animal puzzle.  It was quite challenging and only one group completed the puzzle before the timer went off!

Math Tubs

Math Tubs are a Friday tradition in SK. There are always four tubs going on at one time. Each week, the kids will complete two math tub activities and then do the other two the following week. The tubs are often game based and spark discovery. Let's see what we did this week....

Sorting money was a favorite activity this week. To play, the kids roll a die covered with money, then they find the coin, and lastly, it gets sorted into a muffin tin.

Pattern making with little colored dots. The kids really challenged themselves with multi-step and complicated patterns.

Can you tell with patterns were made by a boy and which were made by a girl?! Both did a great job, while keeping their personal preferences in mind!

Using geo boards to create the pattern block shapes out of rubber bands. Making a hexagon proved to be challenging. After forming the pattern block shapes, the kids could create whatever they wanted.

It was fun to fill in animal pictures with pattern blocks! The kids are learning how the shapes fit together and can be manipulated to form pictures.

A Peek ino the Classroom

Here's a few things that have been going on in our classroom recently.

Have you heard about the World's Biggest Shaker?  This on-going project has created much interest and used much tape and noodles. The collaboration, problem solving, and creative thinking that is going on during the building of the shaker is amazing!

 For spirit week, we made a great poster - "Wear's" our spirit?  We wear it with pride!  Everyone decorated a GSL (paper) T-shirt and we added our face.  Sadly, we didn't win, but we had fun making it.

Have you spotted a little note in your child's lunch box?  These notes are an easy way for your child to communicate with you.  Maybe your child needs a rest blanket, keeps forgetting to pack a fork or spoon, or is just not happy with lunch.  We have noticed that these notes work!  Last week, bacon and even pancakes showed up in happy children's lunchboxes!

Making robots and other creations out of recycled construction.  Love the creativity and problem solving that goes into making these fun creatures!

Workshop Rundown: 9/27

Each week the kids participate in six different workshops. These activities reinforce concepts from our curriculum, thematic units, arts, and cooperative learning. Here's a peek of what we did this week.

The /M/ and /N/ sounds can be confusing. To practice, we sorted /M/ and /N/ pictures and then labeled them if time permitted. Everyone did great at this activity!

To get ready for our trip to the Zoo, we made Zoo portraits! Everyone chose an animal to become and then got creative with construction paper, glue, scissors, and yarn. The portraits are part of a SK bulletin board. It's so super cute!

We finally have a "green word" this week. Green words are HFW that can be sounded out. Our new words this week are big, small, have, and five. The new take-home book is A Farm. After reading the book, the kids sorted the HFW by how many letters in each word. This sheet has a song cooresponding to words with 2, 3, 4, and 5 letters. If your child likes to sing, this is a great way to practice the words.

The kids practiced matching upper and lower case letters using letter stamps. This workshop took a lot of concentration!

We are writing sentences! Making spaces between words can be difficult for new writers. In come the Space People! Our Space People help us write and form the perfect sized spaces between words in a sentence.