Fall is Here!

I could do without the 80 degree weather, but we are definitely seeing signs of fall around here.  I'll be happier when I go out to recess and not sweat! :)

Fall is our integrated theme this week and the kids brought their fair share of knowledge to the table.  It's important for students to dig deep and pull out that background knowledge they have stored away in order to make connections to what we are reading and learning.  Based on what we charted, I'd say we all have a pretty good understanding of fall.

The books we are reading this week include Fall Mixed Up by Bill Raczka and Leaf Jumpers by Carole Gerber.

We have focused on fall leaves - and more specifically, the colors of fall leaves.  We created tear art trees using our handprints and the colors of fall.  Tear art is great for fine motor skills and is always a kids' favorite.

We've also been focusing on the letter M and its sound.  The kids made hats to tie together handwriting, letter recognition and phonics for letter M.  They turned out so cute!

Thank you to Elizabeth's mom for donating our last set of headphones!  We now have all centers in our Daily Five functioning.  We've been practicing all week and things are looking promising for the start of small groups.  We already have our rotation chart up and ready to go!

Thanks to everyone who has been voting in our Limeades for Learning contest.  One of our class projects was funded this week!!!  We will soon have a new collection of Common Core aligned read alouds.  I am so excited!!!  Be sure to keep voting - the contest continues until the end of October.  There are several projects from our school that need your votes.  We still have our iPad Mini project that will need votes as well!

I'll be back to share other fall activities from this week - stay tuned.