Maple Room News
3.2 - 3.6
Exploration
A student even conducted a small yoga workshop this Friday while others worked on imaginative pieces of fiction in the writing center.
Please take some time to speak with your children about the projects and activities they engage in during exploration. Perhaps these discussions could result in more elaborate play at home and beyond.
Reading Workshop
Here are some of the things that we worked on this week:
We learned that the pictures in our books can set us up to have great conversations with our partners. Partners can help each other be careful observers of the pictures in our books, noticing all the details we hadn’t seen before.
We learned a new way to retell. Readers look closely at the cover of their books and make predictions about what the topic will be about. Once we figured out the topic, we could retell the book by talking about the information on each page and how it matches the topic.
For example: If the topic of the book was about forest animals, we could retell each page by saying, "the owl is a forest animal", or "I learned that "bears are another type of animal that live in the forest."
Reading Celebration
The Maples have learned that sharing the books that we love is a really special way to show our friends that we care about them. When we learn something new from a book, or hear a really funny story, we should pass that excitement on to someone new! This week, Maples learned about book recommendations. A strong book recommendation talks about the topic/main idea of the book, includes our favorite parts, and even highlights something special from the book (maybe a cool illustration or a new word that we learned).
Maples had a chance to choose one of their favorite books and write a book recommendation for that book. They shared these recommendations and books with their friends!
Math
This week in math we began our exploration of part-whole bingo: a fun, challenging and extremely open-ended game that supports early number sense. Through part-whole bingo, students are encouraged to think deeply and critically about equivalence and the composition and decomposition of number. While playing part-whole bingo, children are also - through the use of dice - exposed to quick images and sequential counting. Maples also record their combinations and rolls during this game. We've been supporting Maples as they begin to record more clearly using digits and number sentences.
Pease let us know if you would like to play a game of part-whole bingo alongside your child or teacher. We're happy to sit briefly after school or send materials along with your child. All you'll need is a part-whole bingo board, some Unifix and dice!
It's fun to experience math and number in new ways!
Project Time
This week, the Maples continued their play centered around family. We also introduce the word ancestry and discussed where our families are from. In partners, each Maple shared their answers to the question: "Where are your grandparents from?"
We also explored a global map to deepen our understanding of ancestry. The Maples found where their grandparents were from on the map and placed a photo of their face on the map. We realized that we have all come from many different places and now we are all here in Brooklyn...together! This map will live in our classroom-- please come check it out!
Inspired by Home, a touching book by Carson Ellis, children were also considered to think more deeply about where we are and where we live. Home can look, feel and sound many ways. We illustrated places safe and comforting to us: some imaginary - some real. They are also on display in our classroom.
Writing Workshop
We spent some time looking at mentor "how-to" texts to see what authors were doing to make their writing really interesting. We realized that "how-to" authors speak directly to their readers to make the experience more personal. As a class, we decided that the word you was really important to include in our steps. "First, you need to take out a loaf of bread. Then, you need to take out two slices."
The Maples are working on adding clear and detailed steps to their how-tos. We also imagined each step and tried to use precise words to describe what each step looked like before putting words and pictures into our how-to booklets.
Studio Sara is Back!
The easel will be open regularly during exploration for Maples to use.
What can you paint using only black paint and white paper?
Book Baggies are Coming Home Soon
We will send book baggies home with your children on Tuesday, the 10th of March. We’ve been working hard as a class to take great care of the tools and materials within our baggies. We take our books out, one at a time, and stack them in a neat pile atop our bag. We also carefully remove any tools that may support us while we read, spreading them out beside our baggies and pile of unread books. Maples have learned that after they read one book, the place it beside their book baggies, therefore creating two piles of books: those read and those not yet read. When finished reading books, Maples now know to reread and then place all materials and tools mindfully back into the book baggies. Please let us know if you have any additional questions regarding book baggies.