We began our morning by repeating our 'I am thinking of a number between...' game from yesterday. Today we used our large number line and instead of fly swatters, we used our bodies to narrow the parameters. After this, we practiced counting by 5s and 10s. In the spirit of our first unit on counting, we then played a game called penny dice. Students took turns rolling a dice, and collecting the correct amount of pennies. When the pile of pennies got smaller in the middle, they had to roll the correct number in order to pick them up. At the end of the game, we counted up or pennies to see who had more. This was a great way to introduce dice games and money. We will be doing a lot of activities this year that involve playing games, taking turns and being resepectful to a partner. After break, we read the story: 'The Bully and the Shrimp' and talked about how mean words and actions can hurt our feelings. While reading the book we had to really think about the main character's feelings and the author's message. After reading the book I passed out a small paper heart to each student. We talked about words that hurt us or times we were teased. With each mean word or action, we crumpled up our heart. After that, we talked about nice things that have been done for us, and tried to smooth out our heart. However, by the end, the heart was a wrinkled mess that could not be smoothed out perfectly. The kids made the connection that our own hearts feel wrinkled and crumpled sometimes when we don't like what someone says. Words do hurt. After this, we recited this poem: Before you speak, Think and be smart. It's hard to fix a wrinkled heart. This is one of my favourite lessons of our getting along unit! What a wonderful concrete way to show how our actions have consequences.
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This morning, our focus in Math was on counting by 5s, and 10s. We played a couple games, and practiced giving high-fives around the circle counting by 5s. We will continue working on this throughout the week. If your child cannot count to 100 by 10s, and 50 by ones by the end of the week, please make this a priority at home. There are so many ways to gamify this - If you are looking for ideas, here is a good place to start. After counting we worked on our numeracy skills using the words "more, less, fewer and greater". Two students worked as our 'fences' when I told the class I was thinking of a number between (example 11 and 18). those students had to put the fly swatters on the parameters. Students took turns guessing numbers and were told if the number was higher or lower. As the guesses were made our 'fences' moved to narrow the parameters until the number was guessed. After all this we played a listening game where we could move our bodies and follow directions. Have your child explain to you how to play 'On the Line, Off the Line' and try together as a family, taking turns being the 'caller'. After break, we continued learning about reading. Yesterday we learned about the three ways to read a book, and today we learned about how to pick good fit books. We read the story 'Those Shoes' about a boy who purchases shoes that do not fit. Tiana then had to try on a number of different shoes until she found ones that fit. She talked about how it was too hard to walk in shoes that were too big, and that she had outgrown some of the small shoes. We learned that books are like shoes: they need to be a good fit.
I - I choose a book P - Purpose - Why do I want to read? I - Interest - Does it interest me? C - Comprehension - Do I understand? K - Know - Do I know most of the words? We then tried to find a 'good fit' book, and began our 'Daily 5' routine of 'Read to Self'. "The Daily 5™ is a framework for structuring literacy time so students develop lifelong habits of reading, writing, and working independently. Students select from five authentic reading and writing choices, working independently toward personalized goals, while the teacher meets individual needs through whole-group and small-group instruction, as well as one-on-one conferring. These choices include
Daily 5 classrooms produce productive, highly engaged students who are developing a true love of literacy. The benefits of The Daily 5 for teachers and schools include the following:
We also continued to learn about the story element of characters. We read two David Shannon books, 'No David!' and 'David Goes to School'. We then talked about how there are things we know about characters that we can see (physical features) and things that we can learn about characters by their thoughts, feelings, and words. I have attached videos of both books at the bottom of this post.
At the end of our morning of learning together, we revisited our inquiry cycle and talked about what we wanted to know about 'Getting Along' our current UOI. These inquires on our 'wonder wall' help guide the teaching and learning for this unit.
It was a jam packed day of learning! It is amazing just how much our little learners are capable of doing in one day. Please make sure that they have plenty of time to play in the evening, and get to bed early. I am looking forward to another great day of learning tomorrow. We had a fantastic beginning to our morning. After solving our Math message and some number puzzles, we began our first 'University of Chicago: Everyday Math' unit on counting. We used subitizing cards to make sense of numbers in our heads, and got moving looking for different numbers of things in our class. When we were told to find 12 of something, some of our little learners found 12 months (pictured above). We were counting letters, pictures, books, etc. It was a great way to get our bodies moving on an early Monday morning.
We read the story 'If You Give a Mouse a Cookie'. Try having your child retell you the story tonight at home. If they need a refresher, you can watch the video above. After break, we learned about the story element of 'characters'. We learned that characters are the people, animals, things, and creatures, that think, feel and act in a story. We then spent some time sorting familiar characters into different categories. We then drew characters we knew and put them in the appropriate place on our chart. Today was a day of beginnings. We began our unit on 'Getting Along' by discussing the central idea and lines of inquiry. We then started the inquiry cycle by tuning and and discussing what we know about getting along.
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March 2017
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