What an amazing time we had at the museum today!! I awakened saying, "thank goodness we didn't go to the zoo!" It was the most perfect field trip, and absolutely age appropriate for each class. Thank you to Nic, Paul and Shawntay for chaperoning! And for you all for packing those fabulous lunches.
Besties! (minus a few of the rest of the boys!)
Language Arts:
We have been challenged beyond usual this week in reading groups as our ant books are level G books and are a stretch for everyone, along with Mother's Day RAZ books. I love all of the information and pictures along with the more intricate plots, so we quickly made our way through those and then jumped back down to our more comfortable leveled readers that challenge us in all the right ways. Continuous success when reading in groups is necessary to keep kids excited and motivated to continue learning to read. Sometimes there are books beyond their reading levels we can also learn from, picking out the sight words and working on one or two compound words we decode and add to our list of "tough words". I love exposing them to difficult things so when they meet them again they are familiar and are less apprehensive to try.
"Greatest day ever!"
Self face painting!
We go on many bear hunts, and were climbing a tree in this photo! They LOVE it when we see tarantulas on our travels!
Ant sculptures from foil!
Mother's Day gifts!
Our beans and grass are growing and thriving in our classroom!
We are experimenting to see if our bean stalks will follow the maze up!
It looks like we will be switching to BOB books now in JK. We have been using the RAZ (Reading A to Z) but are making a move to all BOB books reading. If you see these come home with your student, they are the solid color books to look for. Please read and return, as these are books we cannot print more of.
Each reading group is full of making predictions, taking story walks, using the pictures to figure out words that are unfamiliar, implementing reading strategies, and becoming more comfortable in the simple act of turning pages and following the text from top to bottom and left to right. It's even more difficult to follow when you are not the person reading. This challenge is a lofty one in JK but we are all working on it.
We have read many fun fiction books along with our continued non-fiction ant books. We read classics like: Math Curse, Yakyu (and sang the seventh inning stretch favorite!), The Honey Makers, Froggy Learns to Swim, Take Away the A, (followed by an amazing word game!), Extreme Insects, The Icky Bug, Ants!, and so many other amazing stories!
Follow this link for suggested reading over the summer. I'll be sure to send a link before end of year for the Evanston Summer Reading Program.
http://www.scsk12.org/schools/abhill.es/site/documents/SummerReadinglists2016.pdf
Math and Science:
Our Math center this week was created around the book, "Math Curse". This book is such a fun way to challenge the children with real story problems and introduce them to many basic math concepts. I love the page about fractions! "We are just about to go home when Rebecca remembers the special birthday cupcakes her mom made. There are 24 kids in the class. Rebecca has 24 cupcakes. So what's the problem. Rebecca wants Mrs. Filbonacci to have a cupcake too. Everyone is going crazy trying to figure out the problem and what fraction of a cupcake each person will get. I'm the first to figure out the answer. I raise my hand and tell Mrs. Fibonacci I'm allergic to cupcakes."
It's full of tales and riddles and the children all loved it. They were able to have fun and listen to the stories while writing numbers on their white boards and practicing using the + and - signs to = answers.
We continued observing and documenting the plant growth in our classroom along with planting flowers for Mother's Day gifts. I loved interviewing each child to see what was most special about their mom. I already knew how special all of their moms are. :)
Fine Motor/Art:
We worked more on drawing an ant and labeling the parts, along with using our fine motor skills to finish our own ant farms. The children all used colored pencils to draw a picture of their moms for Mother's Day. We also placed hand prints on Geranium plants for Mother's Day.
I led a guided sculpting exercise as we made ants from aluminum foil. We began squeezing one long sheet into three parts for the head, thorax and abdomen. It's always fun introducing new mediums for them to work with! You can make art from anything!
The children used stamps to make insect collages and labeled the different insects using inventive spelling or a list of insect photos/words. Stamping is another great fine motor skill, paired with writing and coloring, offers a different way children may create.
Have a lovely Mother's Day weekend!
Ms. Massey
