Turkey Time!

This week was turkey-rific! We had turkey-themed centers, sang turkey songs, colored pictures of turkeys, labeled turkeys, and we even acted a bit like turkeys.  Watch this video of Mrs. Lukacsko's Thanksgiving Song and see what I mean!  We also recited a poem about turkeys, as you know, and Austin, in our PM class recited his 5 Little Turkeys Poem to the most people - 85! WAY TO GO, AUSTIN! 

   We read books about family and friends getting together for Thanksgiving and worked on our own anchor chart.  I demonstrated how to make labels in illustrations. Then we used our reading tools to help us read through the story.

We are using 3 reading tools right now to help us when we get to a word we don't know (any word that's not a sight word).  We are learning to use Lips the Fish and Owl Eyes first with simple sentences like the ones on our chart.

But as we read more complex sentences, we are learning to sound out the words (Stretchy Snake). After the break, we will talk about Lenny Lightbulb, who teaches us to think "What makes sense?" As you know, sometimes words just don't sound out the way they should and good readers will pick up on whats happening in the story and what words belong in common phrases. We will also meet "Skippy the Frog" who will teach us to skip the word, read the rest, then reread the sentence with Lenny Lightbulb in mind. The word "with" in the book page below is a good example of how we will use those reading tools.

Most students know "We like to play" and "the" because they are already committed to our sight word memory banks. They will get the word 'blocks' by making the first sound (Lips the Fish) and then checking the picture (Owl Eyes).  But that word "with" - we can't sound it out because we haven't learned the /th/ sound yet. So a good reader will make the /w/ sound and think, "What word makes sense here?" They may need to skip it, read to the end, and then reread the sentence to get some momentum.  These are things you can help your child with at home. Sounding out is NOT what its all about.  While it's very important they know how to sound out words and do it promptly when it's needed, they don't need to do it every time. If they do, they will not be reading fluently and most often won't know what they're really reading because of all the stopping and starting. 
    Ok, mini-lesson over.
 As I said, most centers had turkeys as a theme. The students played "Build a Turkey" in the Math Games center.  This is the exact same game we've been playing as a whole group on the SmartBoard during calendar time.  Students roll two dice, find the sum, and get a piece to their turkey. This was a big hit! Good thing there's more where that came from (Build a Reindeer, Build a Snowman, Build a Rainbow....).

In the Writing center, the students worked on making a difference between tall and short letters.  They labeled the parts of a turkey but first had to find the words that matched up to their word blocks.  

The students played "Teeny Tiny Words on a Turkey" in the Word Work center.  I made a turkey with sight words "hidden" on it's feathers in 6 point font. So they could only see them with a magnifying glass. Once they found and wrote all 15 sight words, they could color their turkey.

We did learn about some non-turkey related stuff this week. The students learned their very first digraph: /sh/.  I told them a story about how the /h/ likes to flirt with some letters of the alphabet, one being the /s/.  But the /s/ is very shy and doesn't want anyone to hear and tells him, "Shhhhh."  Here's Landon and Mackenzie in the afternoon class adorably demonstrating the story.

We topped off this week with another Fun Friday. The students made a pumpkin pie that showed four things each student was thankful for, 

Then we made magnet letter messages on the fridge,

And one more turkey, 'cause we just didn't make enough during the week.

 I can't wait for our Alphabet party on Tuesday.  Go all out with those letter-themed outfits. I'll post the pics on Tuesday evening. Have a wonderful weekend and Thanksgiving!