The Maples
1.16 - 1.19
IMPORTANT DATES!
- Monday, January 22 - Field trip to the planetarium at the American Museum of Natural History
- Monday, January 29 - Field trip to the Butterfly Exhibit at the Museum of Natural History
- Monday, February 19 - Friday, February 23 - Mid-Winter Recess
A Note About This Week
January is typically a time to re-visit classroom expectations and rules. With three new students, we decided it would be a great time to do just that. This week, The Maples had a lot of practice walking silently in the hallway, and responding to silent signals from teachers in the classroom.
While these routines may seem mundane, they are incredibly important to establishing a well-run classroom - which allows us to dive deep into learning and have fun. Please ask your Maple about the importance of these two routines, and how they help our classroom community!
This Week, We...
- Practiced decoding big words in Reading Workshop together as a class. We used the document camera, and the Maples suggested strategies they learned in guided reading.
- Continued working on our nonfiction ("teaching books") in Writing Workshop. The Maples learned that as they get deeper into their topics, they might need to write down domain-specific vocabulary ("fancy words"). We practiced spelling them together, and being brave about spelling big words - even if they don't look the same way they look in a book.
- Counted quantities up to 60 in Math Workshop. We practiced our skip counting skills by grouping lima beans, pennies, and plastic counters by 5's and 10's. Rob came into the classroom on Wednesday to work with a group of Maples that counted up to 200 objects! We also created our own number strips, using the hundreds chart to write down numbers and notice patterns as the digits increase.
- Explored new systems during Work Time. We opened a Take Apart center to study the insides of electronics, a ball run to look closely at interconnecting elements of speed and gravity, and continued to create train and bus stations using the vehicles we made at the Transit Museum.
- The teachers finished mid-year assessments and created new groups for Word Study and Guided Reading.
Next Week, We Will...
- Start our new guided reading groups and finish our current unit in Reading Workshop.
- Start creating nonfiction chapter books in Writing Workshop and introduce a new checklist to check our work.
- Continue counting large quantities and creating our number strips in Math Workshop.
- Visit the planetarium and explore space in our Work Time centers for our Integrated Unit of Study.
Ask Me About...
- Re-discovering the Word Wall and making our own Word Walls to help us in Writing Workshop.
- Doing reading work with Sara, Campbell and Janis.
- Visiting Underwood Park on Friday!
Pictures From The Week!
Tomas counts how many pennies it took to fill his footprint.
More counting with large quantities of pennies...
Filling a footprint with lima beans, then counting up how many all together.
A small group works with Rob to count quantities up to 200.
Mila practices skip counting by 2's to make groups of 10.
Isobel groups by 5's, then skip counts to find out how many all together.
Practicing writing numbers and noticing patterns - an exploration of place value!
Math Workshop is fun!
Ruby's teaching book is about love: "Today we will write a book about love. What is love? Guinea pigs are love."
Kedara stretch spells a "fancy word" - "practice" - on the document camera for all of the Maples.
Dagmar helps Sara spell out the word "diaphragm" (a fancy word for Sara's teaching book on singing).
Jack and Arlo exploring the Take Apart center at Work Time.
Malcolm getting cozy in hollow blocks.
Kedara and Mila using real tools to get deep into the Take Apart center.