Kevin Henkes Author Study

  

What a very busy week we've had!  Here are some of the important things we learned...

We read books by one of our favorite authors, Kevin Henkes!  Some of the books we read include Chrysanthemum, Lilly’s Purple Plastic Purse, Owen, Sheila Rae the Brave, Wemberly Worried, Chester’s Way, Julius the Baby of the World and many more!  We completed many follow up activities at centers such as answering text to self and text to text connections, talking about our favorite main character, and recalling details from our favorite stories.

We officially started literacy centers! The centers themselves will not change each week but the activity at the center will change.  The new centers are independent reading, theme center, word work center, sensory bin center, write the room/writing center, and ABC center. We also added Reading group center. The children are learning how to read the work board and find their center in our classroom using the pictures on the work board.  

Our centers and reading tasks this week included LOTS of fun activities with tricky skills! We read in the independent reading area, played beginning sound games and roll a sight word.  We made text to self connections with Chrysanthemum. We found various beginning sounds at our "Write the Room" center and recorded what sounds we read.  At Reading Group, we worked on blending and segmenting words. 

In Writing, we listened to and discussed a nonfiction book called City Signs and read written words in our environment (environmental print).  We labeled classroom objects and generated ideas about places we like to go and wrote about them. We practiced telling our idea orally to our partners and then recorded the sounds that we heard in each word.  Please continue to work with your child on stretching out words and hearing each sound (we practice this by pretending that we are blowing a bubble and we stretch it out). 

During Phonics, we worked on letters and sounds for Bb, Tt, and Ii. We revisited the power words "a" and "the".  We also identified words and pictures by their beginning sounds and practiced blending sounds to read words. 

Our Reading lessons this week taught us the high frequency words "are" and "we". We practiced writing, spelling, and reading them. "Are" is a very tricky sight word that has two heart parts.  Ask your child to tell you what that means! We continued to work on reading independently from our book boxes.  We also learned the poems "The More We Get Together", "1,2,3,4,5" and "Way Down South".

We continued our unit on numbers to 10 in Math.  Please continue writing numbers at home with your child. 

In our WeThinkers lesson, we learned how our bodies can help us be successful members of a group. We practiced noticing personal space, body position, facial expressions, and body language and learned how these can communicate messages to others. Through stories, games, and classroom activities, we practice using our bodies in ways that are safe, respectful, and helpful during group activities. We encourage children to notice where their body is, pay attention to others, and make choices that help everyone feel comfortable and ready to learn.

We had Enrichment with Mrs. Knoot and STEAM with Mrs. Bradley! 

We labeled the Play Lab during our literacy block and enjoyed Math groups and playing with Mrs. Dennett's class. 

Looking ahead...

Please check and empty your child’s folder each night and return your child’s folder daily.

Please send a snack with your child everyday.

Play Lab pictures can be found in this folder each week. Due to our field trip, we visit the Lab on Friday. Pictures will be posted on Monday. :) 

Panther Day 10/9

Parent Teacher Conferences 10/13 and 10/21

Field trip to Made

Centers

For our Writing lesson we labeled things in our classroom

Another day of writing- we wrote about where we like to go

Phonics- Our letters this week were B, T and I

Math- these early chapters are all about number sense but part of having number sense is being able to break apart numbers

Choice Time Fun

Morning bin activities

In Reading this week we learned the power words, we and are. We listened for them in our song, "The More We Get Together," and then found them in our poetry book. 

This week we introduced the Centers Work board and they did an awesome job. 

SQUIRT Day 

Interactive Writing- learning power words "are" and "we"

Our Mystery Reader this week was Leana's mommy! We loved having her in to read to us. 

We met our 4th grade buddies today! We are partnering with Mrs. Hadfields 4th grade class this year to do fun activities together and get to know each other better.