Handwriting:  This week we focused on the capital letters Y and Z.  Next week we will begin working on lowercase letters.

Phonics:  We continue to work on blending together onsets and rimes.  The onset is the beginning sound (or beginning blend) and the rime is everything that comes after the onset.  We practice blending onsets and rimes together by “waterfalling” the words.  We point to our heads when we say the onset and point to our shoulders when we say the rime.  Then, we “waterfall” the word together by using our hands to pretend that water is falling over our heads and down to our shoulders.  Thank you for doing this with your child on the homework each week!!

Reading Workshop: This week we finished making our last letter booklet.  We had all 26 of our letter booklets in our book tubs!  We took them out on Friday and brought them home.  Now we have more room for our new sight word books!  We have learned these words so far: a, I, see, & my.

Math: In math this week we focused on the number 10.  We also played math games to help us review counting, number recognition, and patterns.

Social/Emotional:  This week our puppets Matt and Molly helped us learn about feeling frustrated.  We learned that when we are feeling frustrated we can calm down by putting our hands on our tummy and taking a deep breath.  We know that we can also ask for help.

Literacy Groups: Each afternoon we have literacy groups.  We break up into small groups and work on various literacy activities.  Mrs. Bussa, Mrs. Heckel, and Mrs. Nibbelink are the para-pros who come to help lead the groups.  We have parent helpers who come on Mondays and Fridays to help with literacy groups too.

Handwriting:  This week we focused on the capital letters Y and X.

Phonics:  We are working on blending together onsets and rimes.  The onset is the beginning sound (or beginning blend) and the rime is everything that comes after the onset.  We practice blending onsets and rimes together by “waterfalling” the words.  We point to our heads when we say the onset and point to our shoulders when we say the rime.  Then, we “waterfall” the word together by using our hands to pretend that water is falling over our heads and down to our shoulders.  Practice this at home with your child.  Just make sure you use one syllable words.

Reading Workshop: We are working on pointing to each word as we read.  Our easy-reader books have one or two words on each page.  This week we learned the words “a” and “I.”  Those are easy ones because they are both letters and words!  We also have picture books in our book tubs and we “read” those by looking at the pictures.

Here we are enjoying a little quiet time with our books…  

Brain Breaks: It’s fun to give our brains a break and sing and dance!  One of our favorites is Tooty Ta.  We have to do thumbs up, knees together, bottoms up, tongue out, eyes shut, and turn around…all at the same time!  We look pretty silly but it’s so fun and it always makes us laugh. 🙂  

Story Time: This week we read the book, The Mitten, by Jan Brett.  On Friday we took turns pretending to be the animals that climbed into the mitten.  Here are photos of the kids all squeezed into a big “mitten” made out of sheets.

Math: In math this week we focused on the number 9.

Social/Emotional:  This week our puppets Matt and Molly helped us learn about feeling worried.  We learned what our bodies look like and feel like when we’re worried and how we can help friends who are worried.

LANA program: Miss Dorothy from Zeeland Community Hospital came to visit us on Tuesday.  She brought her special friend, Lana the Iguana.  Lana loves to eat fruits and vegetables and she taught us the names of several of them.  She also read us a book and then we were able to try sugar snap peas.  Many of the kids really liked them!  Ever since Lana the Iguana came on Tuesday, the kids who have fruits or a vegetables for snack or lunch have been showing me and the class.  We have been talking about what they have and whether it is a fruit or a vegetable.  It is fun to see them so excited about eating fruits and veggies!

Handwriting:  This week we focused on the capital letters N and V.

Phonics:  We continue to review letter names and sounds, recognizing rhyming words pairs, thinking of our own rhyming words, and counting syllables in words.  We are beginning to work on blending sounds together too.

Reading Workshop:  We have a new name for our “quiet book time”…reading workshop!  Reading workshop happens after lunch when we used to have “rest time.”  During the first few months of school we had rest time where the lights were off and the children simply laid down to rest.  Last month we transitioned to “quiet book time”  where lights were dim and the children were allowed to look at books.  We are calling our quiet book time “Reading Workshop” now because all the children are “reading” the whole time.  Each child takes his/her book tub to his/her reading workshop spot.  Each child has several booklets in there that he/she colored.  The booklets have one word per page and the word matches the picture.  We also added some real paperback books to our book tubs this week.  We learned how to be a book lover, not a book bully.  We also learned how to show Reader Respect during Reading Workshop.  They are doing so well at being quiet and reading the whole time (about 10 minutes). 🙂

Math: In math this week we focused on the number 8.

Social/Emotional: Each week we learn a new social/emotional skill from our favorite puppets, Matt and Molly.  This week they helped us learn about how to show care and concern for others.  We  learned that we can show we care by listening to our friends and helping them.

Centers: At center time, we all work on different activities.  The activities help us review things we’ve already learned.  This is also a time that we work on arts/crafts.  This week we made a sponge-paint snowman.  They turned out pretty cute!!