April Fun!

     We had a great first week back after our much needed spring break!  We read one of my all time favorite books this week.  It is called We're Going on a Bear Hunt.  I remember reading this story when I was in second grade and I always loved it!  I just knew that the class would love this story as well.  We read the story, listened to the author read the story on You Tube, and we also retold the story as a class using picture cards.  The best thing about this story is that the whole class gets to participate when we are reading it aloud.  It was so much fun! 

                                                                 

     Then we read a story called We're Going on a Lion Hunt next.  We made text to text connections while we were reading.  We realized what things were the same and what things were different about the stories.

     During center time this week we worked very hard.  We listened to We're Going on a Bear Hunt and we wrote and drew about our favorite part.  In the Word Work center, we put our star words in ABC order.  Then we did a star word sentence activity using dry erase markers.  Everyone LOVES dry erase markers!  In the Creation Center, we made a flower pot of flowers for spring.  In the Writing center, we had to write two sentences about things we like to do in the spring.  In the Phonics center, we did a vowel activity.  We had to look at the pictures on the card and figure out what vowel sound was in the middle.  Then we had to write the word.  In the Poetry center, we read and put together our spring poem.  In Read and Write Around the Room we found words that began with the letters of the word SPRINGTIME.  In the Reading center, we read our books in our bags.  At that time, Mrs. Aiello likes to come and read one on one with all of the kids. 

     In Math this week, we focused on subtraction.  We did subtraction stories and had to draw and write the subtraction sentence.  Then we focused on how to figure out when you need to add and when you need to subtract.  We did this activity on our white boards.  I gave out a story problem, then the class had to draw it and figure out whether we are supposed to subtract or add.  Then this week we learned about figuring out how many tens and ones are in a number.  We also did really well with this skill!

     Mrs. Grasso gave us an awesome butterfly garden and really cool caterpillars.  We are going to watch them grow and then release them when they turn into butterflies!  Everyone was so excited about that.

     On Friday this week, we had a little celebration for our friend Blaise who is moving.  We gave him a puppy, just like our friend Buddy that goes home with our star of the week.  We are going to miss him so much, but we know you are going to love your new school and meet lots of new friends!  Good Luck and we will all miss you! 

Here are some pictures from the week!

Flower Pot Craft

We're Going on a Bear Hunt Listening Center

Spring Fun Writing Center

Spring Poetry Center

Star Word ABC order (Word Work Center)

Phonics Center

Learning About tens and ones in Math

Some of our friends reading in the Reading Center- They are reading from their own personal bag of books!

Subtraction Stamp Book for Math

March Updates

     In honor of Dr. Seuss, we did lots of Dr. Seuss centers and activities.  We played a fun Math game that helped us practice our addition facts.  It was called Fish out of Water.  It was so much fun and we got to play with a partner, which was even more fun!  We made Thing One and wrote a rhyming sentence on his belly.  Then we wrote all about what we would like to do in the rain (in honor of Cat in the Hat).  Hopefully the Cat in the Hat does not visit any of our houses! :)  We also played a game that helped us make real words and nonsense words with the -ing ending.  That was tricky for some of our friends, but it was fun!
Then to top it all off, we got to go see Seussical at Middletown North High School!  That was so much fun!!!  It was a first bus trip for some of our friends.  The show was great and I even got to see some of my former students perform!  Hopefully, I will see some of our friends in this class performing at North someday!

Here are some photos from our Dr. Seuss week:

   We made some fun things and worked in some fun St. Patrick's Day centers.  We also built Leprechaun traps in March also!  We didn't catch a leprechaun this year, but boy did we have fun trying!  The leprechaun named Lucky left all of us colorful, glittery rainbow colored crayons!  We were so excited for the crayons, but also a little bummed that we didn't catch Lucky this year!  Maybe next year....

Here are some of our traps and some pictures of our centers:

     Then we worked on some Easter and spring centers the next week.  We began working on subtraction in Math.  We also made ramps in our balls and ramps unit in Science.  When we made our ramps, we put things at the end of the ramp to see if we could knock it down.  We learned that the higher the ramp, the faster the ball goes, and then it knocks the object down a little easier.  It was so much fun!

     We learned all about the sh, th, ch, and wh sounds for Phonics.  We also played a life size board game using our star words.  We made an adorable bunny and wrote about what we would do with a pet bunny.  In Reading, we are still focusing on our reading strategies.  We are learning what to do when we come to a word we do not know.  We love being word detectives!  We are also focusing on making connections when we read, visualizing (making pictures in our mind) while reading, and also retelling a story using details and character names.  We are very busy Kindergarteners!

Here are some pictures from the week before spring break:

More to come this week.....