In language arts, we focused on the letter F, and the words friend and for. Luckily, the students already knew how to spell/read Ford (a class friend!) so "for" was not too much of a stretch. We read Rainbow Fish to the Rescue and made our own "fish friend" with the help of Beatrix's mom! They turned out colorful and were so fun to create. We also incorporated Kwanzaa and Hanukkah into our language arts stations with sight word color pages and beginning sound matching for the holidays.
For math, we tackled TALLY MARKS! While the students watch me count and tally each morning, it is a difficult task when they are set free to do on their own. This week we worked on making the tallies- remembering that after you make four, the fifth tally crosses over the group. Next week, we will work on counting them-counting by 5's and how to count by 1's after counting a group or groups of 5. (Ex: 5...10... 11, 12, 13) We went outside and tallied objects we saw on the playground, as well as writing tallies that I called out. Students love using the dry erase hands!
Finally in social studies, we started out winter holiday unit. We spent a few days on Hanukkah and a few adys on Kwanzaa. Students loved learning about the traditions and symbols of the other holidays. We even tried our hand at pronouncing Swahili words for the principles of Kwanzaa!
I am looking forward to the week of crafts ahead of us!
Love,
Miss George