This week the students learned the rules and routines of the classroom. Each student received a basket of school supplies and a writing journal. Also, each student got an agenda which goes back and forth to school each day. In the agenda,the students write important reminders, word wall words and homework information. (Parents can also use the agenda to write notes to me regarding appointments or questions.)
The children reviewed printing upper case (capital) letters by creating large block letters with crayons and cutting them out for the class to use for bulletin board displays. The students used these letters to make our first bulletin board display in the hallway to spell out the message "WELCOME BACK STUDENTS - FROM ROOM FIVE".
The class then reviewed printing lower case letters by printing the letters in their journals with special attention to the size of the letters. The students discovered there are 7 tall letters (b,d, f, h, k, l, t), 14 middle letters (a, c, e, i, m, n, o, r, s, u, v, w, x, z) and 5 below-the-line letters (g, j, p, q, y). The class also wrote the famous pangram sentence, "The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy dog." A pangram is a sentence that contains all 26 letters of the alphabet.
In math, the students reviewed the 10 digits (0 to 9) and how we use these digits to create all numbers from single to multi-digit numbers. Each student made his/her own 100 chart to use as their first "math tool". The children looked at different patterns in the chart, different ways of skip-counting and used the chart to play some addition and subtraction games using dice.
The class reflected on the fact that all the information that we communicate in written and oral English is done with only 26 letterrs and 10 digits.
The children began planning their first fiction stories of the year by painting scenes from their stories using tempra paint and black, permanent (Sharpie) marker. The class reviewed the writing process (plan, rough copy, edit/revise, publish) and planned and began the rough copy of the story in his/her writing journal.
The students talked about art borders and used their ideas to create "blackboard art names" by designing a border around their name using white chalk on black paper. These are now decorating our classroom.
Every week the students get some free creative play time on "Lego Friday". The children also played a variety of cooperative games to learn student names, to work together and to enhance/reinforce learned concepts.
Books Read Aloud This Week
The Incredible Book Eating Boy by Oliver Jeffers
The Book That Eats People by John Perry
Do Not Open This Book! by Michaela Muntean
The Little Red Fish by Taeeun Yoo
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