Eric Carle, Teen Numbers, Healthy Habits and Helping the Homeless!

This week we had an Eric Carle author study. 

We read several of his books but we couldn't get to read nearly enough of them.  He has so many wonderful books.  The next time you're at the public library, check out some of his great work.  In writing we wrote about our favorite restaurant after reading The Very Hungry Caterpillar.  We wrote about what makes us happy after we read The Grouchy Ladybug.  We also started new weekend journals for the 2nd quarter. 

We've been exploring teen numbers in math.  We represent them on a double ten frame, with pictures, words, tallies, and can identifying if the number is even or odd.  Each day we even break apart the teen number of the day to identify ways to make that number.  We have a cool song we sing too called Numbers in the Teens Have a Group of Ten. See if your child can sing it to you!!   We also introduced a new math routine called Question of the Day.  We use technology called Activotes to secretly select an answer to a question and then anaylze the results.  It's really cool!

Last week I did some testing with students of letters and sight words during literacy centers. I'm so impressed with how much they have learned in two months!!  Guided reading books came home this weekend with almost everyone. We also began a new word study program where students are sorting concepts into groups.  Soon we will sort pictures by beginning and ending sounds.  

We've learned a lot in our health unit about medicine, being sick, washing hands, and colds and the flu.  We continued to study ways to stay safe and healthy this week.  Does your child know their full name, address and phone number? This is important if they were ever in an emergency and had to call 911. Next week we will practice this so you can help at home by reviewing this information with your child. 

The Walk for the Homeless was a lot of fun! 

We had several donations from families and had a good discussion about how you can help your community. 

In other exciting news, the morning announcements are now LIVE on TV.  Pretty cool!!