March started out
like a 'lamb' but has had some 'lion' days, hasn't it? I guess Winter felt that it needed one more good snowstorm before welcoming Spring, which will be
with us in a couple of days! I think that the children are excited to run around outside without having to put extra clothing on! When they leave each day I always tell them that part of their homework is to
play outside. In the winter I do not always receive positive feed-back,
but when it is nice out, I do! Due to the snow and days off this week we took a break from our Homework Journal but I hope that you and your child read together each day!
It has been such a fun week! We have been talking all St. Patrick's Day, and dinosaurs!
We are getting very good at writing and solving addition sentences in math. This week we continued focusing on solving word problems by listening to a story, picking out the valuable information that would help us solve the problem, writing the addition sentence, and solving it. We also have been working on the different ways to make up a number. By using unifix cubes, the children are asked to come up with different # sentences that make up a particular number (for the # 4 - 2+2, 3+1, 4+0). We have also been concentrating on 'flipping' the # sentences - 3+1 or 1+3. They are doing a super job with this concept!
We have continued writing our 'How-To' books in Writer's Workshop. This week we continued to focus on making sure that our steps are in the correct order, each word has a vowel in it, we are using our word wall charts, and rereading what we have written to make sure that it makes sense. This last concept still is not one that many of the children do unless asked to, but we will keep at it!
This week we began talking about dinosaurs. The child LOVE learning about these amazing creatures! We talked about how some of them were carnivores, some were herbivores, and some were omnivores. We learned that not all dinosaurs were fierce, but some of them were gentle giants! We will continue with this topic next week. The dinosaur station has quickly become a favorite at free choice time! We have also done some fun writing activities to go with literature that we have read about dinosaurs.
Did your child tell
you about the Leprechaun that
visited our classroom yesterday on St. Patrick's Day? Although we did not
see the actual leprechaun, we found many signs that one had been there.
The children spent all day looking for clues in and around the room -
they became very good detectives! Be sure to ask them what they found! At the end of the day today we were entertained by Mrs. Clarke's 2 daughters who are awesome Irish Step Dancers with some wonderful Irish Step-Dancing. The children loved watching them and many of them now want to become Irish Step Dancers!
Conversation Starters:
- What is a dinosaur expert called? (a paleontologist)
- Are there dinosaurs living today? What is this called? (no, they are extinct)
- Did all dinosaurs live during the same time period? (no, they lived in 3 different time periods)
- Did all dinosaurs eat the same thing? (no, some ate plants, some ate meat, some ate both)
- What are some creatures that are living now that were living during the time of the dinosaurs? (crocodiles, alligators, and dragonflies to name a few)
- What were some clues that we found telling us that a leprechaun had visited our classroom? (green water in the toilet, glitter around the room, stickers in the children's pencil boxes)
How You Can Help:
- Encourage your child to practice writing both their first and last names (uppercase first letter and all the rest lowercase)
- Remind your child to fill in their toothbrushing chart. Ask them what our tooth experiment looks like now!
- Continue practicing addition and subtraction facts to 5. The children are doing a great job on these! Thank your for practicing them - we practice them everyday in school as well!
Looking Ahead:
- Thursday, March 23 - Pete the Cat Field Trip
- Friday, March 31 - Spring Pictures
