From the Library

Pre-first girls are learning their way around the library and reviewing library routines. They have caught on so quickly that we are jumping right in to checking out books. They are already expert at finding their names on the library computer screen and scanning their books out themselves. Each girl is allowed to take home one book at a time and keep it for up to four weeks. Girls are encouraged to read to their pets, their refrigerators, their grandparents and babysitters. If they choose a challenging book they should read with a more experienced reader. When the old book comes back to the library, anew one may be checked out. We have read together Kevin Henkes' Penny series. Penny and her Marble always leads to an interesting discussion. Ask your daughter why Penny felt nervous and how she resolved the problem. We have also read Aliki's Painted Words/Spoken Memories. Ask your daughter what was unusual about this book.

Addition and Skeletons

Many thanks to Cathi Hilpert for being our Mystery Reader last week.  The girls loved the books you brought in!

As you know, we have been working very hard in math on our addition sentences.  This week we sorted M&Ms by color then added the different colors together.

Today we worked with dominos.  The girls pulled a domino out of a bucket, copied the dots onto their worksheets, and added the two sides.

Our latest science unit is skeletons!  The girls are loving this unit and can't get enough information about their bones.  Today, we read Jessica's X-Ray and then the girls put together their own skeletons.  We will be labeling the different bones of these skeletons next week.

Founders' Day Celebration

We might have just had the best Fun Friday in the history of Pre-First.  In the morning, we read Freight Train by our Author of the Month, Donald Crews.  The girls then sponge painted the different train cars and practiced their labeling skills by labeling the color of the cars.

We then walked up the hill to our Founders' Day celebration.  After the celebration, we attended the all-school picnic.  The girls enjoyed hot dogs and hamburgers and the obligatory cupcake.  Our in-house faculty band provided background music that the girls danced along to.  It was a fabulous day to be a Mawrtian!

Addition and Short e sound

Hen, pet, men, peg...what do these words have in common?  They all contain the short e vowel sound.  This week we focused on this sound during our language arts period.  The girls were introduced to the sound by a fun video on the Starfall website--if you have a chance, check it out as it has a ton of great games, books, and videos that reinforce the different sounds and word families we will work on in our classroom.  After the video, we matched short e words with pictures and then the girls played a game in small groups called "Scrub the Decks".  Make sure you ask them about it!  

Here are the girls sorting short e words into "real" and "silly" categories.

Yesterday, we worked on our addition skills and number sentences by adding pumpkin teeth.  The girls had to roll the dice 2 times and place the number amount on the top and bottom.  They then had to count the teeth and write the addition sentence.  Can you tell we are inching closer to Halloween?

The girls have been working diligently on personal narratives during our Writer's Workshop period.  So far the girls have illustrated, labeled, and then turned their labels into sentences.  Today, they applied finger spacing to their stories. 

In math, the girls continue to work on their addition strategies by writing addition sentences.  Today, the girls were partnered up and played the card game War against each other.

French: Les Animaux de la Ferme

Bienvenue à la classe de français! The girls have been learning about farm animals in French class. They have been playing games, singing songs, acting out the animals, and making the sounds they make in French. For example, the duck (le canard) says "coin coin" and the rooster (le coq) says "cocorico." Today, the girls listened to "La Ferme de Mathurin." When the song sang about a stuffed animal a girl was holding, she stood up, danced, and showed it to the class! 

Addition and Writer's Workshop

 Yesterday, we began our new math unit--addition--with a bang by having the girls play candy corn addition.  The girls are also working on reading and solving addition sentences, using the plus and equal sign.

In Writer's Workshop, the girls continued to work on their personal narratives.  Today, our mini-lesson focused on using picture labels and changing them into phrases or sentences. The girls were incredibly excited to start the process of turning their stories into an actual book.

Number sense, ants, and fall

We are getting ready to move onto our next math unit, but before taking that step the girls reviewed the different ways to write a number:  the actual number, number word and showing the number using dots.  To celebrate the upcoming holiday, we used a candy corn as an organizer for our number work.  One student was called up to write the example on the candy corn while her peers did the same work on their individual iPads. While the girls enjoyed this activity, they were a little disappointed that our math lesson did not contain actual candy corn.

The girls learned about the life cycle of an ant yesterday during science. The girls then used a cotton ball, q-tip, and pipe cleaner to depict each stage.

Here is a pic from our Spirit Day--the girls had sooooo much fun (who doesn't have fun when bead necklaces are involved?) even though our parade was canceled.  The first grade led an impromptu indoor parade which we jumped onto.  We are already looking forward to our next out-of-uniform day....HALLOWEEN!!!!!!  Bring on the craziness :-)

With the change in the weather, comes a change in bulletin boards :-)  We were thinking it was about time to change our summer board over to the fall.  To celebrate the season of fall, we read the story It's Fall, which gives wonderful examples of the changing colors and textures of the new season. 

The girls brainstormed different phrases and words that reminded them of fall.  Then the girls copied the phrases we brainstormed--or came up with ideas on their own--and wrote them onto apple sheets.

The girls worked in math centers today, all focusing on number sense--with a fall theme, of course :-)

Matching numbers, number words, and corresponding ten frames.

Matching numbers, number words, and corresponding stickers.

Playing memory, matching the number with the number word.