Mystery Sounds

We went to the science lab and used a sense of sound to figure out the objects in six different bags. The students passed the bags around, shook each one, and then drew their prediction in their science journal. At the end, the students shared their predictions and we revealed what was in each bag. One bag had cotton balls, so we discussed how some objects make very soft sounds. The objects we used were cotton balls, coins, pet mulch, Legos, sand, and buttons.

Nocturnal Animals

We learned about nocturnal and diurnal animals this week. We learned nocturnal animals are awake and feed at night and diurnal animals are awake and feed during the day. We sorted and predicted which animals we thought belong in each category. Then we read Where Are the Night Animals?  and checked our predictions. We illustrated on paper plates examples of diurnal and nocturnal animals. The students choose bats as their favorite nocturnal animal so we made bats using our hand prints. We did a shared/interactive writing piece where we talked to our partner and shared out what we learned this week. Then I wrote down what the students told me. When we came to a word wall word, students wrote those.

Stomp Out Bullying

Wednesday was national Bullying Awareness day. We talked about bullying and charted what bullying looks and sounds like.



We talked about how there are two kinds of bullying. Bullying on the outside causes physical harm to someone. Bullying on the inside hurts your feelings. We talked about how sometimes inside bullying hurts more than outside bullying. We talked what students should do if they are being bullied. First tell the person Stop! I don't like it! Second, if it keeps happening, report it to an adult. Bullying is someone hurting you over and over. We talked about the difference between tattling and reporting. Then students talked with their partner about who they could report a bully to. Then we decorated footprints. 

We hung our footprints on the school mural in the front hallway.

We also wore blue to stomp out bullying!



Apples, Apples, Apples!

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Nature Center 2010-2011

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Literacy Work Stations

When I pull students for small group reading instruction, the rest of the class works in literacy work stations. The work stations are a fun way for students to practice their reading and writing skills. Below are some the work stations we currently have and some of the skills we are or will be working on soon.

Writing Station: Students work on writing their name, word wall words, words found around the room as well as create books, stories, and letters to friends.

Sand Station: Students conduct letter hunts, practice making their name and word wall words with abc cookie cutters and sequence the alphabet.

Big Book Station: Students practice pointing to the words and reading, making their reading sound like talking, finding word wall words, letters, and the beginning and end of a sentence.

Puzzle Station: Student practice putting the letters in their name and order and sequencing the alphabet.

Block Station: Students practice socialization skills and create maps.

ABC/Word Work Station: Students practice letters/sounds/word wall words and work with rhyming and word family words.

Library Station: Students practice pointing and reading grade level texts. They also may look at the pictures and tell the story. They read to stuffed animals and tell each other about the stories they've read.

Computer Station: Students practice letters, sounds, and reading on Starfall.com.

Homeliving Station: Students practice socialization skills, as well as reading and writing menus, grocery lists, etc.

Pocket Chart Station: Students match names and photos of classmates, first and last names, sequence events and poems we've read.

Poetry Station: Students practice pointing to the words and reading, making their reading sound like talking, finding word wall words, letters, and the beginning and end of a sentence.

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A Few Highlights from Last Week

We graphed our favorite shape and analyzed the data!

We read The Bus for Us by Suzanne Bloom. We worked on retelling the story with a partner. We graphed how we get to school and analyzed the data. We also illustrated the way we wished we could come to school as a story response.

We learned about the Preamble to the Constitution and what it means. The students talked with a partner about what it means and shared our their ideas. We choose what we thought was the 3 most important ideas and wrote about them. We also illustrated what the different phrases meant. We learned about the American flag and what the colors mean. Then we discussed the importance of the Pledge and how to appropriately say it to show we are proud of our country.