I can’t say enough about how hard the children have been working.  On Wednesday, Mrs. Martin, our reading coach, came in and taught a comprehension lesson with our class.  The children did a wonderful job.  As I watched the lesson and heard the children respond to Mrs. Martin’s questions, it was very evident that they are learning so much more than just phonetic skills.  The children are also learning strategies that will help them comprehend what they are reading!   

Morning Meeting

The calendar is the center of our Morning Meeting activities.  As with calendars that we all use in our daily lives, we use our classroom calendar to keep up with important facts and events.  Each afternoon, our helper writes a fact on the calendar.  Usually, this fact is something that they have learned about our theme.  However, it can also be a special event that has taken place in our classroom. 

When we look at our calendar each morning, we read the facts that have been written.  We also find the day’s date and talk about the days of the week as the helper announces the day for today, tomorrow and yesterday. 

These are the Daily Data questions that we answered this week.

*How did you feel when you woke up this morning?

*What are you wearing today?

*Do you have a brother or sister?

*What animal act do you want to learn about first?

 Each day, I print out the daily data and we add them to our class data book.  Anytime you are in the building the children would love to show you our daily data!

 Shared Journal

Good stories have a beginning, middle and end.  Without these 3 aspects, the story really won’t make sense.  This is something that the children learned first hand this week!  On 2 separate days, the stories that were chosen lacked at least one part.  This made writing about it very difficult.  As a result, we have focused on sharing all parts of our story from beginning to end.  In addition, we are also making sure that in our journals we are writing all parts of the story that was shared. 

I hope you enjoyed looking at the January journals.  The growth that they show is truly amazing!   

Theme

Each day at centers, the children worked in small groups to research the different animal acts that appear in modern circuses.  During Theme, they presented their research to the class.  Writing these acts on a class web helped us keep up with them all.  On Thursday, we talked about all of the animal acts and then voted on the one that we would learn more about.  The class decided on elephants!

 Shared Reading

We read a variety of books this week.  Our focus was on comprehension as well as phonemic awareness.  Here are some of the books that we read this week:

*10 For Dinner:  We continued to solve addition story problems.

*Tumble Bumble:  In this rhyming text, a bug goes for a walk and meets several animal friends along his way.  While reading this book, we talked about the differences between fiction and fantasy, made predictions about the text and worked on more math story problems.  Then, using the Smart Board, we made new words with the –ug word chunk. The children did this by substituting the initial sound to make new words.  Ask your child what words they can make by adding letters to ___ug!

*Mrs. Honey’s Hat:  In this story, Mrs. Honey visits a different place each day.  During her visit, animals take something nice from her hat and leave something in its place.  After reading this book, we used the Smart Board to make a story map and put the story’s events in the correct order.

Don’t Laugh Jo!

Mrs. Toggle’s Bad Hair Day

Baby Bear’s Books

and many more!

 Centers

Miss Smith and I worked with students on several things this week.  While working with Miss Smith, the children completed another page in their math journals and researched the different animal acts.  When the children worked with me, we added pages to our Circus Fact Books and finished our preparations for Goldie’s funeral. 

 Important Dates and Notes:

·        CiCi’s Pizza Night – Monday, February 12

·        Valentine’s Party – Wednesday, February 14 @ 12:15

·        Goldie’s Funeral – Thursday, February 15 @ 12:15

·        President’s Day/No School – Monday, February 19

·        Celebration – Friday, February 23 @ 1:15

Jason, Cameron T-W and Breonca found that they could make their tall tower sturdy by adding width to it.  William made a unicycle in the Science Lab!