Ocean Animals Week 2 & They're HERE! :)

This week, we continued learning about living things and ocean animals. On Monday, we focused on starfish.

On Tuesday, we learned about hermit crabs and read one of my favorite Eric Carle books, "A House For A Hermit Crab."

On Wednesday, we reviewed all of the sea animals and compared them, as well as watched "Finding Nemo." The kids made so many connections from books we've read and thinking maps we've created and it was really awesome to listen to their comments and side conversations (Yes, I let side conversations slide this time because I was loving what I was hearing! :) )

On Thursday, we learned about manatees and created a bubble map to describe manatees.

On Friday, we learned about jellyfish and created our own jellyfish. We also created our own ocean animal riddle. They did a great job of this! It's definitely a higher order thinking skill because they had to recall facts about the animal of their choice and then phrase the facts to be "I am/I have..." statements.

"I have a fin. I have a blowhole. I have a tail that goes up and down." (answer: dolphin)

But the biggest news of this week was definitely our baby chicks hatching Wednesday night! I wish you all could've been flies on our walls Thursday morning when they came in and saw them in the cage. One of our girls cried because she was so happy. I've said it before & I'll say it again... kids are the BEST kind of people.

So Thursday, we reviewed needs and wants when we talked about things the baby chicks need in order to survive. They spent a good portion of the day observing the chicks and writing about them. I think they could've laid by the cage and written ALL.DAY.LONG if I had let them. :)

On Friday, we learned how to hold a baby chick by practicing with tissue paper first. The kids thought I was nuts, but it works! They all got to hold a baby chick and I took their pictures. I am going to print your child's picture for you to keep next week (we had one kiddo out on Friday, so I want to wait for her before I order them!), but if you'd like me to send it to you via text, just let me know! :)

Have you seen happier faces? They were over the moon.

Also on Friday, we had one more little guy hatch and the kids got to see him still drying in the incubator before I moved him over to the cage with the other 3! We had a 5th one try, but he wasn't strong enough to get out of the egg. :(

The kids thought he looked hilarious & that he just took a bath. :)

Ask Your Child About:

-Writing: Explanatory/Informative writing- Can you write me 3 sentences about starfish?

-Content Connection: Living vs. Nonliving Things- Can you show me which way whales and dolphins tails move? (Up & down) Can you show me which way sharks and fish tails move? (side to side) Why do dolphins and whales have blowholes but sharks and fish do not?

-Phonics/Phonemic Awareness: Vowel combinations- What sound does "ai" make? "ee"? "ea"?

-Fluency: Our fluency poem this week was "Sally Starfish"

-Reading: Main topic and key details- If we're reading a book called "Jellyfish," what is the main topic going to be about? (JELLYFISH!) What are some details you remember about jellyfish?

They loved listening to the conch shell!

-Math: Numbers base 10- place value for numbers 11-19- Can you tell me how many ten ones and further ones are in 16? If Ms. Ham has 17 cookies and puts 10 of them in a cookie jar, how many cookies are left over? We took our place value test and had 89% proficiency of 80% or higher. :) WOO!

Okay, I think that's everything! Sorry for such a long post, but it was an eventful week and we had a lot to share! Have a wonderful weekend and practice those sight words please!

With SO much love,

Ms. Ham

I have written permission to post photos of students from parents/guardians. :)