News for week of 2-11-08

Happy President’s Day! We worked this week on learning new information about why we celebrate President’s Day, and the kids really enjoyed the learning. We talked about why these president’s were important and what it means to be patriotic. They remembered so much from our Veteran’s Day trip to the Veranda!

We continued the centers from last week and will begin start new ones next week. We’re continuing to work on vowel sounds and the “rules” of reading. Our targeted reading skill for the week was making predictions. We talked about what a “good reader” does, prior to and during reading to make predictions. I tell them to use all of their “tools” to find information about the text, pictures, known words, and familiar phrases. We’re also summarizing what we’ve read, I tell them it’s like saying it in your own words.

Two weeks ago we put some new writing tools into place: Monday journals, “theme” journals (Tues-Fri.) and Center journals. Leah and I can see a difference in their writing already. These provide the kids a time to “just write”, without teacher help and correction. The use their Monday and theme journals each morning to free write, this is writing they choose, with a little help. Monday journals help give them some framework to write about their weekend. The theme journals help guide them about writing something related to what we’re doing, this is just something to help them formulate ideas. The center journals are another way to infuse writing into their daily experiences. They write about what they did in each center, not just what it was but how they experienced it. I see a difference in their writing during our defined writing time, they are taking more risks and really hearing sounds that they turn into text. Their ideas are becoming more sophisticated also, they are extending their thoughts. It is a wonderful progression to be a part of!

In math we’ve continued working on time and money. They are starting to understand the concept of counting by fives, which is tough when you are “seeing” different numbers on the clock! This is what is deceiving, when children rote count we think they can easily apply the counting, it’s a different level of understanding to be able to rote count numbers and then apply them to something you are using. They’re getting there though!!