Hello School Families,
We had a wonderful start to the school year (well, except the scare of Hurricane Florence)! Your children are just precious-their individual personalities are adorable and combined make for a fun and ideal learning environment. Below is a brief description of our time together so far…
We spent the first few days of school getting to know one another through various games and guided activities as well as reviewing our class rules/procedures and how to transition through centers. I also introduced the Smartboard. The class enjoyed taking “brain breaks” while dancing and singing to songs like Pop See Ko, Rollercoaster and Fill Your Bucket.
This week we continued to focus on letter L since last week was cut short due to the hurricane. We had a fun filled week and accomplished our goal of learning to recognize, write and say the sound of the letter L. Yeah! I am SO proud of them! As much as possible, I try to plan our books, science, math and crafts to coincide with the letter of the week to reinforce learning.
To prepare us to write uppercase “L”, we used the HWT tools: Roll-A-Dough letters, Stamp and See Screen and Wet, Dry, Try. We complete one activity each day during centers and this is always a teacher directed center.
- Roll-A-Dough involves rolling playdough into lines or curves to make the shape of the capital letter. This activity helps them build strength in their fingers as they learn.
- Stamp and See Screen is a sensory activity where they first stamp the letter onto the magnetic screen and then trace the letter on their own with magnetic chalk. Tracing the letter is a first taste of writing the letter with strokes.
- Wet, Dry, Try teaches many skills. Using a chalkboard, children wet the letter with a tiny sponge, dry it with sponge and then try it with chalk. The little bits of sponge and chalk reinforce correct grip.
Each letter can be formed with using one or more of the following 4 pieces: Big Line, Little Line, Big Curve and Little Curve. Ask your child to show you how they can make an uppercase “L” using the correct terms from HWT: Starting at the top (a smiley face on all our tools helps them orient themselves on page) – Make a BIG LINE down turn the corner for a LITTLE LINE across.
Our Science this week was on Lizards (as our ZooPhonic for letter L is “Lizzy Lizard” (a science reference sheet goes with the Lizard craft we make for our Creation Books that I keep in class until the end of school year). We also studied Living vs. Nonliving. Did you know to be considered “Living” something must grow, breathe and eat?
The books we read this week were: Ladybug Girl, Lady’s Day to Play, Alphatales L-The Lamb Who Loved To Laugh and Leo the Lightning Bug.
Our class devotion was from the book “Five Minute Devotions for Children” called Little Ladybugs. We learned that even though the ladybug’s way of doing things is very different from ours they get along very well. This devotion reminded us that not everyone likes the same things or does things in the same way and God wants us to enjoy our differences and not criticize others. 1 Peter 2:17 Show respect for everyone. Love your Christian brothers and sisters.
Our focus next week will be the letter “F”. Have a fabulous weekend and I look forward to seeing your kiddos Monday!
Blessings, Erin
