Gingko Newsletter
Week of December 14, 2015
Hello Gingko Families!
This week we…
Learned the Sound in Motion for “s.” We practiced the motion and thought of words that started with the sound. We came up with so many words! We each drew the word we chose and put them together to create a book.
Celebrated December birthdays! Happy birthday Ella, Jayden and Chelsea!
Played “Grab, Count and Compare.” We started by sorting all of the Unifix cubes in our classroom by color. Then we each sat with 2 bins. We put one hand into each bin and grabbed as many Unifix cubes as we could. We stacked and counted the cubes to figure out which color we grabbed more of. We then recorded our data.
Read in small groups for the first time! Each child is now part of a “book club.” These guided reading groups will meet 4 times per week. Some kids read with Rosie, some with Marissa and some with Brooke.
Painted the sculptures we created in Studio in a School. We used watercolors to add the finishing touches to the sculptures we created last week. We noticed that some colors showed up better on our sculptures than others.
Started our own pizzeria! We started making pizza in dramatic play after our recent trip to a pizzeria. After we all had a chance to practice pizza making using felt dough and toppings, we made some real pizza! We used special sheets to write our pizza plans; which toppings we’d like and whether or not we wanted sauce and cheese. We took our plans with us and created our own pizzas! We baked them, read a special pizza book and enjoyed our pizzas together! Later, during exploration, some kids started their own pizzeria. Two kids took orders from grown ups in our school. They relayed the orders to the chefs and the chefs carefully created the pizzas, making sure each person’s pizza had the toppings they had requested. We baked them and boxed them and a delivery person dropped them off to the happy customers!
Played a special game and read a book with Sam at Fort Greene Park!
Played a “Compare” card game. You might know this game as “War” or “I Declare War.” We played this game in pairs. We learned how to shuffle the cards and and pass them out to each other. Saying “one for you, and one for me” is helpful. Once the cards are dealt, we kept our cards in a neat stack. Then, we each turned over the top card at the same time calling out “3, 2, 1, Compare!” We use different strategies to determine which card is higher. The person with the higher card then keeps both cards. If both players flip the same number, they each take their own card into their new pile.
Some Reminders...
Please help your child remember to bring their book baggie back to school each day. We will go book shopping once each week and use the books in our baggies during our guided reading groups!
At Home You Can...
Ask your child about making pizza. How did you make the pizza? What did you put on your pizza? How did it taste?
Ask your child about book clubs. Who is in your book club? Which grown up do you work with? What did you do during book clubs this week?