Oak Room Newsletter
Week of November 9, 2015
DISMISSAL IS AT NOON on 11/19 and 11/20!
This week, as told by the Oaks:
We worked on our plays and Pascale sent them in and we brought them home and we practiced at home. We had snack first before recess. It was a center in exploration. We had two explorations because it was raining.
We had no exploration because it was a half day. There's no after school. We are having it with Todd and some other people.
We had a writing celebration and grown ups came. At the writing celebration people who are on the buss's grown ups came so some people got picked up. Some of us set up the art center and the next day there would be a lot of stuff in it. We didn't clean up the block area so some of us have to practice cleaning up the blocks.
We had 3 recesses! For music we went outside and that was our third recess. Instead of Elizabeth taking us to recess after lunch, Michelle took us. Lorna's word study group got to go read books. At lunch we had pizza.
Board Game Exploration!!!!
We will station different board games around the room for grown ups and Oaks to play together for a fun last day before Thanksgiving!
Wednesday, Nov 25, 2015, 09:00 AM
Oak Room
RSVPs are enabled for this event.
Literacy
In writing workshop we sat in groups to work on different strategies. One group worked on adding more details to their stories. Another group worked on putting spaces between their words. Other groups worked on writing all the letter sounds they hear and sticking to writing about true small moments. We also worked on using more of George McClement's craft moves. This week we focused on using EXACT action words. For example, instead of saying "I went to the store." we would use an exact action word, such as walked or sprinted.
At home: At our Writing Celebration one grown up took turns writing/illustrating pages with their child. What a great idea! Try it out!
In reading workshop this week there was a lot of question asking. We reviewed the following questions you can ask when you get to a tricky word:
Search the picture. What is happening? What would make sense?
What would sound right?
What are the parts?
Is it a sight word?
- Is it like a word you know?
We also discussed a few questions you could ask yourself when you reread a book:
What is this part saying? What does this really mean?
Sometimes when we read a book the first time we might not understand everything so it is important to go back and ask yourself questions.
At home: Read together with your child a book you already read. Encourage them to ask you "What is this part saying?" or "What does this really mean?" as you reread.
Math
This week we read the book Grandma's Necklace. In Grandma's Necklace the grandma makes beautiful necklaces but they all fit a certain pattern. The Oaks drew necklaces to see how many blue and green beads it took to make the different patterns. This work continues our work with doubles and pairing. It challenges the Oaks to think about even numbers, but also even numbers of groups.
We also started new work focusing on finding combinations through story problems. This week the Oaks had to figure out the following story problems:
I have 9 toys. Some are blocks. Some are marbles. How many of each could I have? How many blocks? How many marbles? Find as many combinations as you can.
We also played a really fun game called "How Many Am I Hiding" that you can easily play at home too. In this game, partners take turns breaking off and hiding a part of their tower of unifix cubes and asking the other, "How many am I hiding?" This game develops counting on as a strategy for combining two numbers, as well as solving a problem in which the total and one part are known.