October 26

We a full week of school and the energy was high on Friday morning. 

During our literacy lessons this week we learned about letters a and g. 
In readers workshop students we began reading favorite story books.  Students practiced reading with character voices, and matching their words to the page, as well as matching how much they say to the amount of words on a page (if there are many words, then there is a lot to say.  If there are only a few words, then you wouldn't say much).
In Writer's workshop we began writing true stories.  Students are encouraged to think of something that happened or something they did and draw and write everything they can about it. 
During Literacy groups, students are practicing early literacy skills, such a letter names and sounds, letter formation, identifying beginning sounds, and reading leveled books; focusing on concepts of print, fluency, sight words, and comprehension.

During math we decomposed (took apart) numbers 3 and 4, and we worked on ordering numbers to 10.  In doing so we instill a strong foundation for understanding numbers before and after and 1 more and 1 less.  During math menu centers, students worked on number formation, counting, and recognizing quantities.

Our ECO focus this we was squirrels.  Students learned how had squirrels need to work to prepare for the winter.  We played a fun relay game where students had to collect as many acorns as they could.  We talked about how the team that found the fewest might have a hard time surviving through the winter.  During our ECO  lesson, we explored this work further, working together to collect enough food for one of us to survive one week in the winter (if we were a child size squirrel).  One Squirrel, who weighs 1 lb. needs 1 lb. of food per week to survive.  Therefore we tried to collect 40 lbs of "food" (pinecones); enough food for a child sized squirrel to eat for a week.  Working together, we were only able to find 17 lb. of food (filling a large trash bag.).  During forest choice students played math games, make mouse houses, explored the forest for nature artifacts to put in our nature museum,  make pinecone bird feeders, and played in the leaf kitchen.  Miss Gale told the children a wonderful story about how making a fire was learned.  Students collected wood to help start the fire. 

Reminders: 

• Next week we have an early dismissal on Friday, Nov. 1st.  Students will be dismissed at noon.  Lunch will be provided before dismissal.
• Students are not permitted to wear Halloween costumes to school.