Letter Z week, Letter C week, and Letter E week

 

For Z week we talked about what animal we would like to be if we lived at the zoo. They did a great job sounding out the names of the animals.

 

Here is one of our math stations. The students used the dominoes to write addition problems. they used the dots on one side plus the dots on the other. Then they could count how many in all.

 

 

This writing station was a hit! They got lists of words that have to do with the month or season. They could choose any words they liked, or think up some on their own. It just gave them a starting idea for a sentence. Then they used the sight words on our word wall and their sounding out skills to write a sentence. The one below says I like to give my mommy flowers. The one below that says, I love cards because I like to give it away to my valentine. They are thinking these up all by themselves!

 

For our spring art we looked at examples of artist Georgia O'Keeffe. We looked at the details and how large the flowers were. Then the student drew their own flower using oil pastels.

 

We then brainstormed ideas about spring to make an acrostic poem. The students thought up different words for each letter and they got to pick the ones they likes best to fill in their poem.

 

When learning about letter C, the students asked does this word start with c or k because they make the same sound. So we learned this little trick below to help up decide which one it starts with. They say the second sound in the word to see if it would be c or k. I told them it doesn't always work, because we have some odd words in our language. But it's pretty close. And having tricks to help is always a good thing!

 

I asked the kids if they thought they had a lot of C items at home. They all said no.
I told them if they wanted to, just for fun, see how many things you can find at home that start with C. They came up with a great list the next day in class!

 

For Dr. Seuss' birthday, and to do with our sight words, we read One Fish, Two Fish, Red Fish Blue Fish. Then the students got to create their own fish and we put them all together to make our own class book.

 

We worked on the parts of a story. After reading them A Bad Case of the Stripes, they drew pictures of what happened at the beginning, in the middle, and at the end.

 

This center helps them sound out CVC words. The use the magnets to sound out the picture. They love it!

 

This station used our strategy of blocks to solve a math problem.

 

On their journals I told them to write about a cat. They could write whatever they wanted using the sight words and sound out other words. This student wrote a question  as well!

 

We worked a lot this week on learning about elephants. We read some non fiction books and watched some quick movie clips on their behaviors. Then we used that information all week in our writing and conversations.  Below is a chart we filled out using all the information we have been learning. They gave the details and decided which part of the organizer it would go on.

 

We have been working on our sight words. We have songs for our sight words that we sing and they help us spell them. As we sing the song, we write the word and it helps them remember the words better!

 

We  read a book called Elmer about an elephant who was colorful. We compared Elmer and real elephants using a Venn diagram. The students gave the facts and decided where they thought the information went on the diagram. It's always interesting to see how the AM and PM classes are the same and different in their ideas.

 

We also worked on comprehending our reading. We went back in the reading and underlined where we found the answers to the questions. This helps them build good skills to look back to what they read.

 

 

 

Then I asked the students to draw a picture of what they thought Tabby liked to do using what we learned in the reading. They did a great job explaining their thoughts.

 

 

For journals, I asked that they use what we learned about elephants to write about them. This gives them ownership of the writing but gives them a topic to focus on. They wrote some amazing things in their journals.

 

We also worked together to create a rubric for writing and pictures. For each square we added a little bit more to make it look better. The students led the conversations and made the suggestions and what to add to the pictures and the writing. It created some great discussions. It also helped them realize what good writing and details in their pictures look like.  The top picture is from the AM class, the bottom one is from the PM class.