Although our weeks have been short, we are continuing to engage in many activities!

To help us practice writing our names using an uppercase and lowercase letters properly, we created Dazzling Name cards. Each child wrote his/her name in pencil and then we traced their names with glue. Afterwards, the children sprinkled glitter over the glue to make their names dazzle! We will continue to use these cards to help us remember to use an uppercase letter for the first letter in our names, followed by lowercase letters.

We practiced building the uppercase letter E with elastic bands on the geoboards. To help us write the lowercase e, we are using the following image/saying:

1) Start with the baseball

2) Hit the ball

3) Run around the bases

4) Slide into home!

We also created our letter E card to add to our alphabet wall. The children drew pictures of elephants, exit signs, eggs, Ella, Emily, elevators, etc.

We continue to enjoy reading together in our guided reading groups! The children have been working on taking turns reading and following along with their peers, identifying sight words, and making observations about the texts. They also read the books that they wrote to one another!

This week, we will learn two new sight words:

the

little

These words will be added to our classroom word walk! We will also practice identifying these words in more stories and environmental print around our classroom and the school.

We have been practicing to differentiate between the use of the period, the question mark, and the exclamation point. This is a great activity to practice at home too! For instance, say the following sentence aloud using a period:

The puppy ran away.

Now say it using an exclamation point:

The puppy ran away!

Now try it using a question mark:

The puppy ran away?

Using the proper inflection in your tone as well as facial expressions make this activity fun for the children. It’s also helpful to use a visual of the marks, and this will continue to reinforce punctuation mark identification.

We started making our counting books! The children are using various materials to create these books including glitter, glitter glue, pom poms, feathers, popsicle sticks beads, etc. The children are working hard to select and glue a given number of objects on each page.  Ask your child to think about what page 8 of their counting book might look like…

Mrs. Woods helped us make Limonana! (Mint lemonade)  First, we picked mint from our JCDSRI garden. Then we washed the mint, and mixed it with boiling water. We strained out the liquid and mixed it with lemon juice, cold water, and sugar. Everyone shared the same opinion: the limonana was delicious!

This week we are reading Platypus Lost. This book is about a little girl who continually looses her stuffed platypus in different locations including the playground, the lake, and even the market!

We learned the following song about a purple platypus.

(To the tune of Baby Bumble Bee)

Oh I lost my purple platypus today

Searched around the market couldn’t find him anywhere

My grandpa peeked in a bag of groceries

Look! We found him!

We have been identifying the following “amazing” vocabulary words in our stories and songs this week:

market

around

lost

found

platypus

groceries

The children made self-to-text connections by illustrating pictures of their own personal stuffed companions. They drew pictures of stuffed sharks, rabbits, bears, lemurs, monkeys, and a blanket.  Some of the children even decided to observe their rest time snugglies to help them create their pictures!

Together with our buddies, we went on a nature walk/scavenger hunt around the neighborhood! We spotted rocks, leaves, sticks, cloud formations, trees, acorns, pine cones, and much more. Many of our discoveries can now be found on our science table!