05 Dec Classroom Update

Welcome to December!

I hope everyone is doing well.  Below is the latest classroom update:

We continue to do more fun fall-related activities within our weekly Motor Language Group sessions with Ms. Burd (SLP) and Ms. Danielle (OT).  Students made a turkey using colored feathers.  We also made rain clouds for two weeks.  Students worked on solidifying weather vocabulary and fine motor pinching skills as they dropped food coloring onto shaving cream in a jar of water.

In literacy, we are officially on our third cycle of the alphabet.  This round, we will be focusing on sound-symbol relationships.  We will be reading books with heavy alliteration as well as identifying words that start with the same beginning sound as the targeted letter of the day.  You can practice and reinforce this learning at home by selecting your own letter of the day and finding things at home that start with the same sound.  For example, if your letter is P with the sound /p/ (not /puh/…the /uh/ makes blending sounds together much harder), look around your home and find a pot, a pen, or a piece of paper!

Our comprehension stories have also been fall focused.  What Do I See in the Fall? and Fun in the Fall have both reinforced familiar vocabulary as well as presented questions with three visual options to choose from for the answer.

Finally, in literacy, we introduced a new nursery rhyme this week – Jack & Jill!  We’ve been having fun matching, sequencing, and retelling the rhyme.

In math, we are wrapping up our unit focusing on length and height.  All students have had practice with the following two Boom cards to improve independence with identifying tall/short and long/short.  These two links will work for the next two weeks to practice at home:

Tall & Short: https://boom.cards/fastplay/kbuy

Long & Short: https://boom.cards/fastplay/6kjt

Our first Social Emotional unit on self-awareness wrapped up.  Recall that self-awareness measures how accurately students recognize their own feelings and thoughts as well as how those thoughts and feelings influence their behavior.  Up next, we are starting a unit focusing on self-management.  We will continue to build our social emotional toolbox with more calming strategies!

Upcoming Dates:

December 18^th – Jan 1^st First Winter Break

January 5^th – Popcorn Friday

January 12^th – BINGO Night

January 15^th – NO SCHOOL Martin Luther King Jr. Day

January 25^th – Coffee with Kessler 9:20am

January 25^th – Science Fair/STEM Night 6pm-8pm

January 26^th – NO SCHOOL Teacher Work Day

New photos have been added, too!

Happy Holidays,

Jaime