Apples to apples

We had so much fun with apples this week!  We wrote about apples using our new sight word "my".  The students wrote about the apple they brought to school!

Check out Josephine's awesome journal writing!

We also made a class graph of our apples!  We are learning to make and read graphs (which has most/least).

We had more multicolored apples and no yellow apples!

The students were introduced to narrative and informational books!  We discussed the differences between them and how to identify them.  Narrative books have characters and tell a story.  Informational books have facts and real information in them.  We used an informational book to learn about the parts of an apple.  We learned that labels are words that identify things.  We made our own apple art and labeled the parts of an apple!

Charlie's labeled apple!

Another fun art project was our apple and apple core art!  They made a whole apple and an "eaten" apple!

Rocky's apple art!

Thank you for helping your child items for our Letter/Mystery Bag!  They had such wonderful clues and great items!  Please continue to bring in an item with clues as a part of the students' weekly homework.  Here is our poster with examples of phonetic spelling!

Shapes, shapes everywhere!

This week we learned about shapes! While many of the students can identify these shapes, describing them can be challenging.  We practiced describing them and explaining the differences between them.

2 long sides and 2 short sides = rectangle!

3 sides =triangle

 We made our own shape puppets that have poems to help us remember what makes them "special" and different than the others.

Sandy Square, Ricky Rectangle, Tommy Triangle, and Cindy Circle

Using our magic sunglasses, we went on a "shape walk" around the classroom.

Recording all of the shapes around our room!

We used this shape walk to help us with our journal writing.  They learned that "I" and "a" are very special because they are not just letters, but also words!  Before we began writing, we acted out the sentences-"living sentences".

The students used their "Shape Walk" findings to write their sentence. 

We continued practicing our Letter of the Week Ss and our sight word "see" by writing sentences.

I see spaghetti.
I see sunshine.

As a fun art project to practice shapes, the students made Shape Friends and had an introduction lesson on how to draw people.  We learned friends come in all different shapes and sizes!

To wrap up the week, we made Shape Glyphs. Each shape glyph was different and told a lot about each student.

Favorite shape=Body
Favorite color=Color of body
Semi circle mouth=I am a girl
Rectangle mouth=I am a boy
Number of teeth=How old I am

Brown Bear, Brown Bear...

At MATES, we teach language arts, mathematics, science, social studies, and art in thematic units.  Over the past few weeks we've integrated reading, writing, art, and math projects in our "Color Unit".

We continued learning how to spell and read color words.  We read the story Brown Bear, Brown Bear What Do You See?  and made our own books.  The students found the color words on each page, underlined them the correct color, and colored the animal.  We practiced pointing to each word, reading the color words, and retelling the story.

Tracking-reading from left to right, pointing to each word as it is read

We practiced retelling the story with puppets!

Each child illustrated their own page for our first "class book".  They practiced writing their name as well as a friend's name and drew a picture of a classmate.

The students were introduced to graphing this week. They rolled dice, counted the dots, and colored in squares on a graph. They continued rolling until a color "won"!

Fun with math and colors!

The students made another color book, My Color Book.  It went home in their Friday Folders today, please ask them to read/sing it to you!


To wrap up our unit, we read a silly story, Pete the Cat and His White Shoes.  The students loved how Pete the Cat had a positive attitude no matter what he stepped in! (i.e. strawberries, blueberries).  They made their own Pete the Cat and chose their favorite color shoes.

  

We celebrated the 10th day of school by reading the story, Ten Black Dots. The students used 10 black stickers to create a picture.  They completed the sentence to tell about their picture and we re-read it together.

Ten black dots can be a juggler! Great phonetic spelling!

First days of Kindergarten...

We're already busy in Room 18!  Over the past few weeks, we have made new friends, learned routines, and took our first steps together as we start our Kindergarten adventure!  

The students had fun discovering lines and curves in letters and used them to write their names with one uppercase letter in the beginning and the rest lowercase letters.  

We read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom! by Bill Martin Jr. and John Archambault, a story about letters climbing up a coconut tree.  They made our own trees with their names!

comparing and contrasting letters

writing new friends' names

  

We wore our "magical" glasses as we explored our classroom and searched for words.

so many words to read and write!

This week we learned how to spell and read color words. You may hear your child singing songs to remember how to spell the colors!  They made their first "books" and practiced "tracking"-reading from left to right and pointing to each word as they read aloud.