Workshop Rundown: 5/6

This week was filled with lots of BUGZ! and Mother's Day surprises, but we also managed to sneak some learning in too!

On Monday, we all made a set of antennas to help us get in the spirit of our play!  Some wore them during the show.  Some kids are still wearing them today!  While simple, these required the kids to use good fine motor skills and follow directions.

We drew our final self-portraits, as bugs, of course!

We focused on R consonant blends this week.  The kids unwadded a piece of "trash," named the picture and then wrote the word, making sure to write the blend.  Afterwards, the paper was wadded up and thrown into the trashcan - the best part!

We took a walk down memory lane.  Everyone chose 4 photos from throughout the year and then wrote a sentence about them.  If you want to take your own memory trip, just look through past blog posts.  It's amazing all we've done and learned this year!

Workshop Rundown: 4/29

 Did you hear the news? We filled our marble jar again!  For our celebration, the class voted on more outside time.  Luckily, the weather cooperated with us and we enjoyed snack, lunch, workshop, and even rest time outside!  Here we are eating lunch outside.

 Workshops this week were great.

 Everyone enjoyed an exciting game of HFW Go Fish!  This was a fun way to practice all the new words we have learned.

 Currently, our language arts study is on consonant blends.  This is 2 consonants "blended" together such as "sn," "tr," and "pl."  This week, we focused on L blends and made a flower of blends.  The kids took turns drawing a picture out of the flower pot and then decided the blend before writing the word on the flower pot recording sheet.

 Playing language arts and fraction apps on the iPads was a fun way to practice key concepts. 

 Everyone worked very, very hard on writing the Mother's Day Lunch invite.  We hope you find yours in the mailbox soon!

We also spent a lot of time this week working on a special Mother's Day surprise, but we'll keep that under wraps until next Friday!

Workshop Rundown: 4/25

To practice position words, we made a fun little sticker book.  Our new HFW this week are over and under.

 As part of our Earth Day celebration, we sewed up snack bags.  These handy bags can be used in place of plastic baggies and washed so they may be used again and again.

 Of course, we had to fill up our bags with a yummy Blends Snack Mix. 

 We are just beginning to focus on blends - two consonants that keep their individual sounds as they are read together such as pl, sc, and tr.  Our blends mix had trix cereal, craisens, dried fruit, pretzel twists, and sprinkles.

 Everyone was an "ing King" for a day!  The kids are really beginning to understand how to place an "ing" on the end of a word.  After decorating the "ing" crown with pictures and words such as swing, swimming pool, and king cobra, it was worn proudly around.

 Our word family study this week was on U.  For a challenge, the kids had to create their own words using the U Word Families.  This was a big challenge for many!  They worked together in their groups and did a great job.

We also drew our April self-portraits.  Such fun, sunny pictures!

Shelby Farms

It was big fun at the Shelby Farms Discovery Playground! Perfect weather and a perfect day!

Fly on the Wall

Do you ever want to be a fly on the wall in the classroom and just observe while the kids work together?  Jill and I often find ourselves being a fly.  Just listening and observing while the kids work out problems, discover new ideas, and come up with solutions.  

We went outdoors to work on the final Joe the Ginkgo Tree project.  The class was randomly divided into 4 groups, each representing a season.  They were given the task of writing 2-3 sentences about Joe during their given season. Here is a snippet of what happened.

Seeds, Seeds, and More Seeds!

To start off our week, we went on a seed hunt.  The kids cut open various fruits and vegetables looking for seeds.  We discovered that seeds come in all different shapes, colors, and sizes.  Some seeds you can eat and some you don't.   We planted various seeds and look forward to seeing what sprouts.  

We also had fun sampling the various fruits and veggies.  Unfortunately, I was so busy exploring with the kids, I forgot to take pictures!  Ask your child about the seeds we discovered.

After writing a class seed story last week, the kids had fun creating their own, original seeds stories, on seeds, of course!  While each story is different, they all have the same components of how a seed grows into a flower and then produces more seeds.

The seed stories are strung on green yarn and will go into a cute little seed packet the kids will make tomorrow.

In Discovery today, we read about the parts of a flower and created a collage flower using yarn for the roots and actual flower seeds for the seeds!  After making the collage, the kids used their National Geographic Explorer magazine to label the parts of a flower.

Math Tubs

The kids are excited about playing Top It!  This game is just like "War" - you flip over a card, and the highest value wins.  If you have a tie, you have a "top off" and flip over another card.  The way we play, Aces are low, Jacks = 11, Queens = 12, and Kings = 13.

We are learning how to tell time and are very excited about it!  To practice, the kids worked in groups to put together time puzzles, matching analog and digital clocks.   In SK, we focus on the hour and 1/2 hour.

Solving subtraction problems using an egg carton calculator!  Each problem began with 12 and the kids removed eggs to find the answer.  A great way to understand how subtraction works.

Everyone had fun using the iPads to practice math concepts such as addition, money, and time.