Learning Experiences

Reading- We are continuing to practice memorization of sight words. We keep reviewing vowel sounds and digraphs. We are working on hearing long and short vowel sounds this week.

Writing-We worked on conventions this week. We worked on punctuation, word spaces, and doing our very best spelling. The kids had free choice on the genre of writing. Next week we will begin our opinion writing unit.

Math- We continued working on addition and subtraction with a variety of games and activities. We also used the pan balances to make equal and unequal weights. We did a survey and asked the class what their favorite animal and made graphs of our data.

Science/Social studies- We studied living and non living this week. We went on a walk to look for living and non living things. We learned what living things need. T

One of our science topics is living and non living. Spring happens to be the perfect time to start noticing all the living things around us! Today we had a good time learning about animals and how they get things they need like food. We enjoyed a virtual walk in the woods with Mystery Doug and observed animals.

Then we pretended to be quails, raccoons, and woodpeckers and tried out he behaviors we observed in the videos.

We learned how these animals find food! The kids we pretty awesome at becoming the different kinds of animals and finding food like seeds, fish, and grubs!

Reading- We got back into our nonfiction reading this week. We practiced reading to learn new facts and information. We shared facts we learned as we read each page and recorded them on a chart. We continue to work on letter sounds especially vowels and letters the kids easily get mixed up like p,b,d and q. We practiced tapping words with digraphs like th, sh, ch, wh, and ck.

Writing- We worked hard to tell 3 facts about our topic this week. We continue to work on neatness, spelling, word spaces, capitalization and punctuation. We also learned how to add a sound lead at the beginning of our writing, and an ending after our facts.

Math- We had a busy week in math playing lots of games like Hiding Bears and Growing and Disappearing Train to practice addition and subtraction. We are working on building a deep understanding of the processes of adding and subtracting so the kids really understand what these terms mean as opposed to following a procedure to find an answer.

Science/Social studies- Our Mystery Science video was about how magicians trick people! Our cool tool was about the upcoming Timber wolf Talent Show. We learned a lot about nutrition this week as well. We had a concert from the Mother Singers and guest readers from the Mizzou Soccer team!

We have been working so hard on teaching others facts through nonfiction writing! We made a chart of the most important parts our writing should include.

We have been learning more about lots of nonfiction topics and then writing about them!

Reading: We enjoyed reading nonfiction books this week. We learned about headings, photographs, and captions! Reading groups continued this week focusing on strategies for figuring out words as well as comprehension skills like predicting and making connections. The kids are making so much progress!

Writing: We worked together to write about Pluto. We worked on choosing a nonfiction topic, writing a heading, drawing a realistic picture and labeling. We are working on forming sentences that tell facts about our topic.

Math: We worked on measurement this week by using post it notes to measure our heights to see if we were tall enough to ride a roller coaster. We worked on accurate measuring techniques. We had fun exploring the faces of 3D objects by dipping their faces in paint and stamping them on paper. We also continued our work with addition and subtraction.

Science/Social Studies: We began our Living and Nonliving unit by learning about what animals need to live. We enjoyed a Mystery Science video about Pluto.

Reading- We began our Nonfiction unit this week and enjoyed reading to learn about frogs and nutrition. The kids had fun sharing facts they learned. We continue to practice letter sounds, especially vowels and digraphs during our whole group time. During small groups, the kids work on a variety of skills like strategies for solving unknown words, new phonics concepts like s, ed, and ing endings, and blending sounds together to form words. Each group has a different focus depending on the needs of the students in the group.

Writing-We focused on choosing a topic this week. Great topics for nonfiction are topics we know a lot of facts about! The kids also wrote letters to you to tell you about what they have been learning. We will give you the letters at conferences.

Math-We worked on measuring and comparing length by measuring our heights with string! We introduced 3D shapes and discussed their names and attributes. We also played games to practice noticing attributes and categories.

Science and Social Studies- Our cool tool was reviewing cafeteria expectations. We began learning about nutrition. We enjoyed a mystery science video about why cats purr.