All About the New Year!

Highlights:

This week we met Mrs. Yoon and got to learn some facts about her. We found out that many of us have many things in common with her - ask us what we had in common. :)

There were a few changes to the classroom, such as our new "Calming Corner" and strategies for dealing with problems that occur in the classroom. Ask us what some of these are!

We also talked about what it means to be respectful and how to demonstrate whole body listening skills while a presenter or speaker is talking. We are working to build better habits and use positive and calm voices in the classroom.

We also started guided reading! While one person reads a page, the other group members are to follow along by tracking with their fingers. After everyone had a chance to read, and we finished the book or chapter (depending on the book we had), we noted down any unfamiliar or challenging words.

The next day, we read the same book, to reinforce reading and fluency, but worked on making connections to the book.



Starting next week, we are hoping to get some parent volunteers (who have police check clearance) to come in during our guided reading time to help us out! - Please email Mrs. Yoon if you are interested!







For literacy, we went to our flexible groupings and worked on various skills that will help us in reading and writing - such as digraphs, blends, short vs long vowel sounds, and syllables.

Here is a student in Mrs. Yoon's "Blends" flex group working on an interactive sort activity for pl, sl, and bl blends!

In gym we started a new unit of gymnastics! We learned all sorts of safety rules that we need to maintain in order to enjoy gym and be safe, such as "three in a tree", "wood is good", and how staying quiet is very important during gymnastics - ask us what these rules mean!

For math, we learned about place value and how numbers can be grouped in different ways. We learned that number can be represented in standard form as well as expanded form. And we learned that the value of a digit in the tens place (of a 2-digit number) will always be greater than the value of the digit in the ones place - ask us why this is!!

We are also reading a story called Grandma Eudora's T- Shirt Factory, which expands on our understanding of place value. After reading the story, we were given cards that had numbers on it. The number represented the number of t-shirts we had. Then we had to figure out how many of those t-shirts we could roll into bundles of ten. We will be using this story to continue our understanding of numbers next week.



In art, learned about tints and shades. Using our knowledge of tints and shades we winter scene with snowy trees. We used various mediums to add interest.
First, we took smooth cardstock and tore it up to create the snow and the moon, and placed that against textured construction paper for the sky.



Then, we used black pain for the trees. We had to be careful to lift the brush when we got to the top of the tree so that it was more narrow than the base.


Then we added white paint to the black to use for the light on the tree (from the moon) and the shadow behind the tree (on the snow).

Here is a final product:



Finally, we for inquiry, we learned about the design thinking process. After solving problems together as a class, working through the design thinking process, we went off on our own to interview someone in the classroom and find a solution to a problem they are having. The extra challenge was to use magnets in our solution. We brainstormed solutions after defining the problem, then presented them to our partners. After getting feedback, we selected one idea and created a diagram of an imaginary prototype that we built. Afterwards, some of us got to present our prototypes to the class and get more feedback. We learned that in designing solutions to problems, the process is not linear - it is often very important to get lots of feedback and go back to the ideation stage in order to enhance our original design.

Reminders:

1. Please return field trip forms - Bow Habitat field trip will be on Jan 22
2. Parents who would be interested in volunteering for Guided Reading - please email Mrs. Yoon. If there is any parent volunteer who is interested in being the Room Parent, to help organize future volunteering opportunities - also contact Mrs. Yoon. 
3. Jan 27th is Family Literacy Day - Wear your pajamas 
4. Jan 30th - Non Instructional Day - no school for students