It is hard to believe that January is over in a few days!
This year is flying by - too fast for me. I love your children and
don't want June to come anytime soon!!!! It was wonderful talking with all of you this week and sharing all the good things that are happening with each of your children. Thank you for all of the support and encouragement that you offer to each of them!
We have very busy in Math this week learning about bigger #'s and
different ways to count. We have been creating groups of 10's to help
show us concretely what a larger # looks like. We also have been learning
about estimation - looking at groups of objects and then estimating how many
are in a group and what # it would be closest to. We are beginning to
practice our # facts to 5. We continue to reinforce
tally marks, reading graphs, and patterns.
We began our final writing piece in our narrative unit this week in Writer's Workshop. The children have been working very hard on making their story follow a 'first, next, then, last' pattern. This pattern is very helpful in having children learn how to retell a story that they have read as well. Reading and writing go hand in hand! They will be bringing home all of their narrative writing pieces sometime next week. Keep an eye out for them and enjoy reading them with your child!
We continued learning about polar bears and penguins this week as well as other polar animals. The children always love learning about these animals, especially the penguins! We had fun pretending that we were father Emperor penguins trying to keep a penguin egg (beanbag) on our feet as a real father penguin would do. It was NOT easy!
On Monday we went to the Winter Concert. The children were so excited to see their siblings and/or friends playing musical instruments or singing in the chorus. Many of the children actually used this experience to write about in writer's workshop.
Today we had an assembly and found out what our 1 School, 1 Book will be! It is When the Mountain Meets the Moon by Grace Lin. The children are very excited to begin reading it. Each family received a copy of the book today with a few other goodies. There is a bookmark that came along with the book to tell you when to read each chapter. Although we will not be reading this book in class, we will discuss it and do some fun activities that go along with it. Grace Lin will also be visiting our school sometime in the Spring as a visiting author!
Conversation Starters:
- What ocean do we live the closest to? (Atlantic Ocean)
- What kind of whales live near the Emperor penguin? (orca and killer whales)
- How tall does an Emperor penguin grow? (as tall as a 2nd grader and even some K students!)
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| Emperor Penguins |
- Who takes care of the Emperor penguin egg until it hatches? (the penguin dad)
- How are penguin chicks fed? (the mother or father eats some fish and then goes back to the rookery and regurgitates it into the chick's mouth)
- What are some other types of penguins? (Macaroni, Rockhopper, Chinstrap)
- What is it called when a penguin travels on its belly? (tobogganing)
How You Can Help:
- Encourage your child to count by 1's, 2's, 5's, and 10's.
- Read over the penguin poem that is in your child's folder with him/her. As you read it together have your child point to each word. Pick out sight words. Go on a vowel hunt and ask your child to point out the vowels in each word. Have fun!
Looking Ahead:
- Wednesday, February 1 - Read to Succeed Reading Logs are due
- Someone Special Reminder: Addison Livingston
