The learning continues

This week we survived a time change, full moon, Friday the 13th and of course are dealing with the unknown, stress and anxieties of COVID-19.  You know what else we did? We learned, loved, played and made memories!  Routine is key during stressful times and I thank you for sharing your children with me!

A look at our learning this week...

Fundations: we continue to work on reading, writing and building 3 letter CVC words (consonant, vowel, consonant).  We are also really beginning to work on reading simple sentences fluently.  It is important to sound like we do when we talk and not like a robot when read.  

To help with this at home, please check your child's Friday Folder and do the suggested activities. 

Shared Reading: to help us practice our new spelling words we, she and he we read the books Polly Gets Out, He Runs and She was with.  We continue to work on trying multiple strategies when we come to an unknown word in a book to help us figure it out and not appealing to an adult/teacher for the answer.  

Please check your child's daily take home folder.  We cleaned out our book boxes today and they are bringing home MANY of our past Shared Reading books.  These are for you to keep at home.  These would be good books to use to practice reading fluently, and not like a robot, like mentioned above with Fundations.  

Writing Workshop: today we finished up our non-fiction unit on guinea pigs.  Every child has written at least one book with facts they have learned about guinea pigs over the past couple of weeks.  Next week we will learn and write non-fiction books about dogs. This will tie into our Service Learning Project. 

We were so excited to have Aurora and her mom bring in their pet guinea pig, Nora, during our writing time this week!  They taught us more facts about guinea pigs and we were able to pet and see what we were writing about in real life!  So cool!

Math: this week we worked on 3D shapes (cube, cone, sphere, cylinder, cone), sorting and playing a "guess my rule" game with sorting and surveys/data collection.  

Check your child's Friday Folder for ways to extend this week's learning at home.  The 3D shapes listed above are the ones we expect them to know by the end of Kindergarten.  
Here is a fun little video we sing to help us learn the shapes.

Science: we continue to learn about the weather.  We are noticing that when it is almost time to change seasons (next week will be the beginning of Spring) the weather can be very up and down.  One day it might be mild and the next day very cold!  We are also learning that Spring is a very rainy time, but this is good for our plants, grass and the outdoors!  Check your child's take home folder for a weather tracking activity we did this week. 

We have also been talking about keeping healthy!  We learned how germs get in your body, as well as the ways to help ourselves and others stay healthy. We are working on washing our hands well, coughing and sneezing into our elbows, blowing our noses and then washing hands or using hand sanitizer.  We are also using hand sanitizer more often, especially when it is not a good time to wash hands.

We have not talked about specific illnesses at this point, as not to put extra stress or worry on the children that they do not need.  It is important to remember that they are 5-6 years old.  All teachers are being provided accurate information on COVID-19 and are taking precautions and guiding students as necessary.  

Here is a link with information, including a cartoon for children. Another good resource is the CDC website.  They have information for individuals, but also information to guide leaders who are making decisions about closing/canceling public places or events. This link will take you to a hand-washing video we watched in the classroom this week.  The Magic School bus also has a good video about germs.  

All in all, we are lucky to live in a time with quick and effective forms of communication, scientific knowledge and advanced medical care.  

Classroom fun: on Thursday we had a special visitor, Miss Beily.  She is a Sophomore at Hickman High School and job shadowed me as part of her classes through the Career Center. She is thinking she might want to be a teacher someday.  The coolest part?!  I was her 1st grade teacher when I taught at Midway Heights Elementary!  Although it makes me feel old, THIS is one of the many reasons I teach!  The children enjoyed having her with us for the day!