Here’s some schoolwork from Jane’s first few days of school, and below is the teachers’ summary of what’s been going on this week:

This week in Language Arts we review the sounds /p/ /t/ /o/. As
a class, we brainstorm words to build a word wall then choose three
words to write correctly then draw a picture. You will see these papers
come home once your child has finished.

In math we
are beginning our lessons with mental math activities and fluency of
numbers and counting. As a class, we count by ones, twos,fives and tens,
whispering the fives and tens. This would be a wonderful activity to do
while driving in the car to support your child’s learning!

We
also played a couple of games to familiarize the children with a number
line and comparing numbers.  You will see the download of some games we
play in class to the right.  Playing these games as a family will also
further your child’s understanding of concepts covered in class.  

We
are exploring the rainforest through our senses and children are
observing and expressing their learning, visually and verbally.  In
small groups, the children looked at photos of the rainforest and shared
their observations. They further thought about questions they could ask
as they wondered what was happening or could happen in the rainforest.
In the listening center, children listened to birds, rain, wind and
thunderous sounds, then drew what they heard.  
In
Social Studies, we are discussing ways to be a good partner and a good
friend as we come together in our new classrooms.   We are getting to
know our new tablemates which gives us an opportunity to come to
agreements, be flexible and share ideas.  Their first task as a groups
was to decide on a name for their tables.

We also
reintroduced the mood meter as part of our RULER curriculum.  RULER is
an acronym for Recognizing, Understanding, Labeling, Expressing,
Regulating. We practiced expressing and recognizing emotions with each
other then explored characters feelings in the books,  When Sophie Gets
Angry by Molly Bang and Chrysanthemum by Kevin Henkes. The children took
turns plotting the characters on the mood meter.