Arctic Animals: Penguins

lindsayham82
Jan 29, 2017
3 min read

We continued learning about maps & globes/geography with an integrated theme of Penguins this week! We loved the fiction stories, "Tacky the Penguin" and "Pinkie" and we did a lot of comparing and contrasting this week with double bubbles!

A penguin & fish digraph game for one of their centers. (These kids would spend all day on the floor if I let them I think! It's so funny to me & as long as they're working, I don't care where they are!)

Ask Your Child About:

-Phonics: Digraphs- What two letters make /sh/, /ch/, /th/, /wh/, /ck/? Blends- What blend do you hear at the beginning of flower? (/fl/) scarf? (/sc/) tree? (/tr/ - this is a HARD one for them!)

-Phonemic Awareness: Sound deletion- What is pig without the /p/? (ig)

-Reading Comprehension: Comparing and Contrasting- What is a similarity between Tacky and the other penguins? (They all wear bow ties, etc) What is a difference? (The other penguins sing nicely, Tacky sings LOUDLY... the other penguins walk 1-2-3-4, Tacky walks 4-2-0, 2 1/2, 3, 0)

-Social Studies: Geography- Where did you visit for your landform passport? (The forest, the plains, the mountains, the ocean) Which was your favorite place?

-Math: 2d vs. 3d shapes- How many faces does a sphere have? (0) How many edges does a cylinder have? (2) How made vertices does a cone have? (1)

-Writing: How many times can you use and in a sentence? (1) What kind of letter do you have after a period? (Capital) Can you show me how to write your last name?

A peek into what we do during reading groups each day:

Warm up: Penguin Blends Matching Game

Decoding a tricky word in the title

Sight word review (Sight words are the key to reading fluency...just in case I haven't said that a bazillion times! :) )

Picture walk & talk... stopping to decode a tricky character - soft g, long i in giant and long e, /u/ sound for a in weta.

Reading at own speed with trackers!

Reminders:

-100th Day: The 100th day celebration is this Friday (2/3) and I hope to see our little guys dressed as old people! Goodwill or PartyCity are great places for cheap accessories... I'm going to ask Kate to take some pictures of us! My goal for the rest of the year is to do better with taking CLASS pictures! Also, if you signed up to donate something, please send it in tomorrow!

-Toys: I confiscated a LARGE number of toys this week... please make sure your child isn't bringing toys to school! Thank you for the support!

-Jackets: Please be sure you're sending your child to school in winter gear when it is cold! We go outside as much as possible (above 20*) and they need to be prepared :)

-Valentine's Day: Our party is Friday, February 10th from 9:50-10:50 and parents are welcome... our wonderful room moms are planning and I will send more info. as soon as possible! Hope to see you there!

-Heads Up: Your child will have a WONDERFUL sub tomorrow... please remind him/her to be on best behavior! I'm spending the day at the DMV getting my CO plates so believe me, I'd rather be at school. Thank you for your understanding!