Our integrated theme this past week was MONSTERS - and what a fun theme it turned out to be. With the popularity of the movie Monsters, Inc., there are no scaredy cats in this class when it comes to monsters.
We introduced our new theme with our weekly poem titled "Monster":
If there's a Monster in your closet,
And, you don't know what to do,
Sneak up right behind him
and yell a great big
BOO!
I completely forgot to take a picture of the illustrated poem that the kids added to their poetry journals :( Some of them were so detailed and creative.
We also focused on two books - The Monster Who Lost His Mean by Tiffany Strelitz Haber and There's a Nightmare in My Closet by Mercer Mayer
We created a monster glyph based on data that we collected as a class.
Favorite Color = color of monster
Age = number of spots on monster
Preference of Book Read = color of mouth on monster
(The Monster who Lost His Mean - red mouth, There's a Nightmare in My Closet - blue mouth)
I grouped the kids by their favorite color and had them sequence a sentence to add to their glyphs. The sentence read "Go away big ________ monster." They had to fill in the blank with their color monster.
In addition to our glyphs, we also took part in our first class science experiment. We learned about the scientific method and what scientists do when they perform experiments.
Our question was "What will happen if we put Mentos candy in a bottle of Diet Coke?"
We each formed our own hypothesis - or as one student said - "a smarty pants guess." ha!
We tested our "smarty pants guesses" by performing our experiment outside. The kids could barely contain their excitement!
We did indeed see a "monster explosion" and we all recorded the results accordingly.
Adding to our Daily Five time, we practiced using our Word Work materials. It's important that the kids know how to use the materials and understand how to properly take care of them as well. We practice our sight words and CVC words during this time.
This week we will practice rotating between all five centers. Thank you to Eden's mom for donating a pair of headphones! We are only in need of one pair now. One more pair will allow for two people to do the listening center! If you have a pair you can donate, we would greatly appreciate it!!
The Daily Five should be fully implemented by the beginning of next week (as long as the kids prove themselves this week). That means we can officially start small groups! Yay!
On a completely different note, I plan our Fridays to be "Fun Fridays," which means I stray a bit from our routine curriculum and incorporate other activities that the kids can look forward to. For example, this past Friday we closed our sorting unit with a yummy jelly bean activity. The kids worked on their color words and their sorting and graphing skills by sorting jelly beans and graphing their results. They also analyzed their data by answering questions based on their graphs.
Another new addition to our week - Reading Buddies. I have set up a buddy system with Ms. Chinault's 4th graders and Mrs. Gilstrap's 8th graders. Every Friday, half of our class is buddied up with one of these upper grade students. They read for 20 minutes with their buddy. The following Friday, the other half of the class is buddied up. This was the first Friday of our Reading Buddies and it went very well. The Kinders LOVED being with the older kids and the older kids really loved reading with the Kinders. It was definitely a win, win.
I hope everyone is voting in our Limeades for Learning contest. We are voting as a school on specific projects each week. Make sure to check PALS Facebook page to see which project you need to be voting for. The more projects we can get funded, the more materials we will have for our school! I'm hoping by the end of the October our class will have a new Read Aloud Library, as well as two iPad Minis!!!! Keep voting so we can work towards our goal!

Our new Star Student is Matthew Green!
Matthew demonstrated perseverance this past week. He was on a plus all week, but he made a personal goal to be on +2. He reached his goal, not once, but twice - and he beamed with pride with his sweet smile. Congratulations, Matthew G.
No comments:
Post a Comment