Busy Week

Hi All!
I was at a retreat in McCall this weekend, and have not posted nor taken any pictures. But here is what we've been up to in class:

We have learned the words "I", "we", and "the". Your children should be able to recognize them in any text. We have been reading leveled books together, using chopsticks as "reading sticks". I am watching to see if they can follow the words I read, and if they can follow with the reading stick when they read as well (or if they are just repeating what I say).

In math, we have learned AB patterns, and ABC patterns. Be sure to point those out when you see them, or, if you see a pattern (stripes on a shirt, socks, book, etc.) ask your child if he or she knows what kind of pattern it is.

We have also been counting, and will begin counting by 2's this week. Counting the 20 star papers on Friday was a great kick-off for this. They are sure to see the importance now.

We have learned how to write "Frog-Jump Letters" (letters that start at the top, go down, then jump back up to the top again . . .ribbit). They have learned capital F, E, D, and will learn "P" this week.

I am discussing "setting" in books we read together.

See if your children can identify coins! We've been talking those too!

I'm looking forward to the short week - er - to get to more trainings that is! I hope you enjoy your time too.

Thanks for reading!

Week of September 8th

Danielle was the A,B,A,B,A,B pattern queen on Thursday!

Thanks to the Air Show advertisement, our afternoon class was treated to a free letter-making lesson! We started school a little late that day to watch the writing in the sky.

Before we start to correctly write the letters, we have to learn the shapes of the letters. We have "big lines", "little lines", "big curves" and "little curves". We explored the different shapes this week. We will begin making letters (and writing them) with correct formation next week.



We used tweezers to cover the word "we" with beans. Using tweezers takes strong finger muscles!

The First Days . . .

Have you heard these words ? . . . . "We haven't done anything yet!" "When are we going to start working?" "We haven't done paper work yet!" If only they knew all that they've been learning! We've learned how to sit in "Learning Position".
We've been working our little finger muscles.
We're enjoying recess!

We're learning how to play with one another. (Did I mention we have lots of boys in our class?)
We're building Iron Man. And using our finger muscles.
"Learning Position" ready to learn!
Playing with new friends at recess . . .
How to stand in a line . . .

Manipulating shapes (using our finger muscles) . . .
How to share . . .
Using our finger muscles . . .
Thank you for the playdough!
How to wait our turn . . .

We used pushpins to trace our names. Again, we are using our finger muscles.

Tracing is great for fine motor skills. Why do we need to build our finger muscles?

"So we can be good writers!"

And a little glimpse into my world this weekend . . . a freshly moisturized couch.