A Captivating Two Week Update!
Dear Parents,
We hope that you enjoyed the mini-break we all had last week! I enjoyed talking with each of you during parent-teacher conferences as well. It’s hard to believe that the first part of our school year is coming to a close!
We’ve had a busy two weeks with trips across campus to the science lab, working hard on our math, science experiments and Constitution Day!
The class finished up their books on Alf this week. With Alf, we started to focus on the middle sounds in words like tap, pot, bag, and car. Last week, we wrote in our journals about what kind of adventures we’d like to take with Alf and as a surprise, Mrs.Barlow and I built a mock campfire in the center of our room. Last Friday, we all ate a snack and lunch around the campfire and a good time was had by all. So much so, that I think we might keep the campfire around as a new piece of flair to the room. As the days (hopefully) get cooler, it’ll be fun to warm our bones by a pretend fire 🙂
This week we also met our newest SuperKid, Doc (that’s short for Doctor). Doc likes to “dibble dabble” around fixing broken toys or even inventing her own. We learned about the letter D and practiced writing the upper and lower case letter. Also, with Doc, we introduced our first-word list. The class will have their first test on Friday, October 5th! I know they’ve been studying already, as I’ve heard them discussing the flashcards and the word list with their friends.
In math, we finished up our colors, shapes, and growing pattern exercises and moved on to Chapter 3: Positions! I have focused on more visual clues for the kids so that they are able to see the actual position of an object, say a pencil, “under the table” or holding it “over” the table. They’ve caught on quickly and I’m so impressed by their hard work!
Science has been getting more in-depth with each lesson too. The entire class loves walking across campus to the lab. The past two weeks we’ve been focusing on apples. The class learned how important a bar graph is when taking data (how many of our classmates like red apples, how many like green, etc) to hands-on experiments such as trying to figure out if certain apples will float or sink in a bucket of water and using the weight scales to figure out how many gram bears an apple weighs (FYI: The biggest one in our barrel took 17)! It’s always awesome to see those brilliant scientists minds at work too! On Friday, we brought in an apple peeler and Mrs. Barlow was kind enough to peel each child’s apple for a snack. We talked about which apple peel would be the longest, which apples might produce the most apple juice or even who had the sourest one (Granny Smith’s are a favorite)!
In social studies, we’ve been learning about the explorer Christopher Columbus and his three ships, the Nina, the Pinta, and the Santa Maria. I talked about the use of an hourglass and how the sailors aboard Columbus’ ship used ones that were in 30-minute intervals. The sailors knew that when they had flipped the glass eight times, it was time for their shift to end. Pretty interesting! The kids were completely engrossed by this lesson and had some great follow up questions like, “How did they talk to the other sailors on the other boats?” “How did they go to the bathroom” “What happened to his diary?” and “What did they eat for two months?” Mrs. Barlow surprised the class by making hardtack (or sea biscuits) for us all to try. And we ALL decided that pizza would have been a much better choice! Also, Eva discovered Christopher Columbus “missing” diary in our own class library! We’re going to read an excerpt each day to see what happens!
In Mrs. Goodson’s PE class we’ve been working on our gross motor skills by using the balancing beam, the floor ladder (some of our classmates may be future NFL players with that speed!) and hurdles. They all love the physical activity and everyone looks forward to getting to play games and challenges in her class. Art class had us finishing up our cities and this week, we completed caterpillars. Mrs. Doherty has really been challenging the kids with their fine motor skills and their finished pieces are always so great! Mrs. Barlow sent home the rocket ships last week, so I hope that you all were able to hang those up on the fridge! In technology this week, Mrs. Butcher introduced keyboard games to the class to help them learn the placement of the keys. It was tricky at first, but within a matter of minutes, everyone had figured it out and was having a blast playing games!
We didn’t have a VIP this week due to the short week, but last week’s VIP was Reid Dickerson! We enjoyed Reid’s All About Me board so much! Reid loves art, Disney World is his favorite place to be and when he grows up, he wants to be a miner! How cool is that? Reid also shared his favorite food with us, peppermints! Thanks so much Reid for sharing so many fun facts about yourself, we really loved it!
Last Friday (the 22nd), we had Constitution Day on campus and it was such a great day celebrating our Constitution! The kids were really excited to see the changing of the flag and we enjoyed getting to share the afternoon with our Book Buddies from Mr. Ovby’s class. We had some special treats as well to share for a snack and as a special treat at the end of the day, we all sat outside, had popsicles and told jokes! What a fun Friday 🙂
One very important reminder: WEDNESDAY OCTOBER 3RD IS PICTURE DAY!
And our word of the week is: Explorer
With love,
Ms. Porto and Mrs.Barlow
