Jan Brett Author Study

                                                     

  What a busy week we've had! We started our Jan Brett author study and have loved reading her books! Jan Brett is a beloved children’s author and illustrator known for her richly detailed artwork and engaging stories inspired by cultures around the world. She has written and illustrated over 40 books, many of which have become classroom favorites such as The Mitten, The Hat, Gingerbread Baby, and Annie and the Wild Animals. Here are some of the important things we've learned...

Our centers this week included reading books on RAZKids on iPads, sequencing the animals in The Mitten and retelling the story of The Hat. playing CVC and middle sound games, finding winter pictures around the room and writing the words, and more! 

We continued working on visualizing and retelling during Reading. We learned the new vocabulary words: pleasant, unpleasant, crowded, and uncrowded.  We talked about suffixes (un-) and antonyms (opposites).

In Writing, we reminded ourselves of some writing ideas and then worked on adding more details to our stories. We asked and answered questions with our partners to help us brainstorm more ideas for our writing. 

We wrapped up our Reveal Math unit on teen numbers.  Please continue to work on reading, writing, and decomposing teen numbers at home with your child. 

In Phonics, we revisited the sounds for /h/ and /r/ and wrote the letters Hh and Rr. We learned two new power words: help and her. We read a story titled Pam Hit It and wrote about it. 

Looking ahead...

Early Release Day 12/19

Winter Break 12/22-1/5

Our Friday Morning Mystery Reader was Eleanor's Grammy. She read us such a fun book! Thank you for sharing it with us. 

Our Friday afternoon Mystery Reader was Mrs. Rosen (Graham's mommy). We loved A Duck Called Bruce! So fun! 

Ms. Peterson came in today to do a lesson on resilience called Bounce or Splat.  

Our High School Spanish buddies came to sing Feliz Navidad to us and to make holiday cards with us. Such an exciting experience. I even got to see some of the kiddos from my second Kindergarten class. 

Reading- Student Response Journal- drawing what we visualize after hearing the poem, Umbrella

Centers

Phonics- learning our power words for the week- her and help

Sweet friends enjoying the 2nd grade performance together

Writing

Choice Time fun

Centers

Ezra Jack Keats Author Study

                                             

We have had a busy week reading stories written by Ezra Jack Keats!  Here are some of the important things we did… 

   We engaged in an Ezra Jack Keats Author Study. He broke the color barrier in children’s literature with the mainstream success of The Snowy Day in 1962.  He believed that all children should be able to see themselves in the books they love. We agree!

Our centers this week focused on reading and writing CVC words and sight words, playing various learning games, and completing activities based off of Keats' stories The Snowy Day and Whistle for Willie. 

During Reading, we visualized the poem "It Fell in the City". We discussed which words helped us make pictures in our minds.  We also used the illustrations in the story Red Sled to discuss what was happening in the book. We echo read with attention to characters' feelings to build oral fluency and discussed the typography to build our concepts of print. We practiced visualizing while reading independently.  Finally, we learned these vocabulary words: grasp, observe, evening, and noiseless. 

In Phonics, we revisited the sounds and letters: Bb, Ii, Ff, and Cc. We learned two new power words: my and by.  We read a story titled Can it Fit? and wrote about the story. We continued working on word families, medial sounds, blending, and segmenting. 

In Writing, we heard and discussed good writing.  We wrote about our feelings and told our ideas orally before writing. We worked on writing from left to write and leaving spaces between our words.  We also used our word wall to help us.  We were introduced to three new power words: feel and when. 

In this week’s Second Steps lesson, we learned that kindness is a way to show people that they care and that doing kind acts can make both the giver and the receiver feel good. We shared personal examples and discussed how we felt when they gave or received kind acts. Help your child think of a kind act they can do for someone and support them in carrying it out. With your child, discuss how they think the receiver of the kind act felt. Ask your child how they felt doing a kind act for someone.

Looking ahead...

Early Release Day 12/19

Winter Break 12/22-1/5

Interactive Writing about our Snow Day

Science- predicting if something with sink or float

Science- testing if it will sink or float

Our Prevent Ed lesson with Ms. Jill- she taught us about sharing. 

Reading- drawing what we visualized after listening to our poem-It Fell in the City

Phonics

Centers

Sweet friends

 

Our Mystery Reader this week was Elliott's mom! We loved hearing SuperWorm!

Writing

Sharing our writing