We See Fall

It's my second favorite week of the year - Fall Week! (The 5 Senses of Christmas week will always be my absolute favorite). We read lots of non-fiction books about the upcoming season during our read alouds this week.  We learned our first poem, "We See Fall," and we made a chart about the things we see, wear, and celebrate in the fall. We practiced the fall poem all week so your child should be close to reciting it without needing  the paper copy (which was attached to the newsletter).  I explained the poem reciting assignment to them and the directions are also in newsletter.  They have until next Friday to recite it to as many people as they can.  Write the names of the people they read it to on the back of the poem and send it in their folders on Friday.  The student with the most names will get a special trip to the treasure box and then all of us will go to a big kid classroom (3rd, 4th, or 5th) and recite it to them. 

  

As I said, this week we discussed all things FALL.  We wrote about fall things as a whole class and the students wrote about them in their journals, too. When we have journal time, the students first glue the writing prompt onto the page and then begin drawing a picture to tell about their thoughts.  The next step is to use letters or words, or even sentences to communicate what they put in their drawing.  The students are at various stages in the learning to write process and thats okay. Some are working on adding detail to their pictures. Others are starting to write letters for the sounds they hear.  We do not expect them to spell words correctly unless they are "Word Wall" words. These are the sight words we've learned so far and they are encouraged to use them when writing in their journals.

In our centers this week, the students put together a 4 seasons floor puzzle,

 

 played with Legos (L is for Legos!),

 cracked the secret codes in Number Work,

 played Cookies on a Plate in the Math Games center,

 and stamped out the sight words in Word Work.

The students did a brand new whole group activity this week that we will continue to do most Fridays: Sight Word Sort.   The students work at their tables with the worksheet (pictured below)  while I am at the SmartBoard (which is projecting the same worksheet they have).  They must choose, from the sight words listed on the SmartBoard, which word fits in each set of boxes. 

 










Here is a video of the afternoon class demonstrating how its done.



For our Fun Friday art project, we bravely used PAINT for the first time!  The students used q-tips to paint beautiful fall foliage.  The students did a great job following directions and created some nice pieces of art for our hallway.  We also watched a Letter Factory video about reading with with fluency and expression while Mrs. Taylor and I finished up with the weekly assessments. There is another learning video we watch whenever we have 3 extra minutes at the end of the day that the students absolutely LOVE and so do I.  It's the first episode from a British educational series called "Alphablocks."  (Your child will love if you let them watch this at home)!

It has been a FABULOUS week. The kids are learning so much.  I am very pleased with their progress and the eagerness to learn they bring with them everyday.  Here are some snapshots from our fun throughout the week.  Remember to wear BROWN on Monday. 

Cooper's face is hilarious here.

Purple Day!



dancing at indoor recess to Waka Waka by Shakira