We have been very busy and it seems like this week has just flown by!  We had an intruder drill Thursday morning.  Most of the children did a great job.   However, some did not.  Please talk with your child about the importance of our tornado, fire and intruder drills.  It is so important that they understand that these drills are serious and not the time to be silly. 

Also, I am so happy to announce that Dr. Land was named as the National Distinguished Principal for the state of Alabama!!!   

Morning Meeting

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

*Did you go to PTA last night?

*What is your favorite center? 

I have also noticed that the children are writing their own daily data questions and having their classmates answer them during center time!!!!!

 Shared Journal

In our journals this week we have been working on adding details to our stories.  The children are working very hard to add details to each story they write in their journal.  I have seen progress in each child’s journal with the way they are adding those details.  This really makes their stories come together.  We are also working on talking to each other in our negotiations.  They are moving away from talking to me when they have a point to bring up.  The children are now beginning to talk to each about their reasons for choosing for a story. One of our goals in shared journals is to talk to each other and they are well on their way!

This week in Shared Reading we continued reading books by Audrey Woods.  We and also shared a few other favorites! Here are some books we read this week.

Quick as a Cricket – With this book we talked about opposites and synonyms. 

The Big Hungry Bear- For this story we worked on comprehension

strategies.  We used comprehension cards to talk about the events in the

story and to come up with questions we were still wondering.

I Like Me- We reviewed e-marker words.  The children looked for e marker words in the story.  Then they made a chart of their own e-marker words.

In the Tall, Tall Grass – With this book we discussed onomatopoeias.

Onomatopoeia is a “sound effect word” like bam or buzz.  We looked for these words in the story and we talked about different sound effect words that we could use in our journal writing.

Centers

Center time has been very busy this week.  We are working hard on the construction of our elephant.  So far, the legs and feet have been completed.  Our second group is working to finish the tummy and it should be completed early next week.  In addition to this construction project, we worked in our math journals, added elephant facts to our circus books, typed our favorite elephant facts onto our class web page, wrote daily data questions, sent e-mails and so much more!