September 16th

Language Arts - Now that we are starting to settle into our classroom routines, we began to tackle the curriculum this week.  For the month of September and part of October, we will be reviewing all the letters sounds. To do  this, we use a program called Animated Literacy.  Each day we learn a new letter and with it comes a character, story, song and action.  This week we learned P, U. O, M.  We don't learn the letters in alphabetic order but instead they are learned in a order where the students can begin spelling words right away.  There is also a guided drawing with each letter and we write the words to go with them.  The students just love this part and their drawings are so cute.

The daily repetition of the Animated Literacy lessons will really help the students remember the sounds, which is critical to taking the next step in learning to read.

Another element of our Language Arts program in September is our printing activities.  We learn to properly print two new letters a day.  This week we learned the "Half Moon" letters which included c, a, d, g, and q.  Next week we will move onto the "Bounce Letters".  

 As part of our letter review, we also do printing each day.  The students have been introduced to the printing friends: Turtle Letters, Giraffe Letters and Worm Letters.  These friends help remind the students where each letter belongs on the line.

Social Studies - We have being doing our Special Student of the Day.  One student is chosen each day to share their treasure bag.  The class is given the opportunity to interview the student.  We do a guided writing activity and then.....the best part.... the students get to search for new words in the writing.  They come up to the chart paper and slap the words they know with mini fly swatters.  They just love it AND they are reading words already!  We then all draw pictures of the special student and give those to the student to keep.  The special student works with me to fill out a page all about themselves.  When everyone has had a turn, we will create a class book.

 Math - Our focus continues to be on numbers to 10.  We are practicing recognizing number, counting sets, ordering numbers, and 10 Frames.  We like to read a lot of books about counting and students do a combination of independent seat work and math games to keep them engaged.  

 We had some great visitors to the school this week.  The students LOVED the Motivational Magic and were absolutely amazed when the magician made a bunny and a dove magically appear!  We learned all about how to make and keep friends.  We also had our bus safety lesson so we are all ready to go on field trips.