Another Great Day!

I'm really proud of all of the students' progress so far, and it's only the second day! We are really working hard with our number work. We played a game called "Bug Sums" on the computer today that allowed us to practice not only number identification, but addition as well. We also used an audio-equipped hundreds chart to practice identifying larger numbers. Make sure to practice these skills at home! There are so many diffferent ways to incorporate this...maybe you can practice reading street addresses while in the car, or make up a number guessing game. The choices are limitless!
I hope everyone is having a wonderful week so far!

First Day of School!!

I can't believe summer is already over and we're on to a new school year! This year, we have 6 kindergarten friends and 10 first graders and they're a fantastic mix. We started today off with a bang, jumping right into the curriculum and learning--one of the many advantages of multiage and of knowing your students before they start (either by teaching them previously, or spending time with them before they come). The kindergarten students started learning about counting to 50 and the /s/ sound. First graders started with counting to 500, the long /a/ sound spelled a and a_e, and the long /i/ sound spelled i and i_e. Of course, the first graders started spelling words as well (their favorite!). We all started Shared Reading with "Come Meet the Moon" and learned the names of the 7 continents and 4 oceans. Here are a few pictures from center time today...enjoy!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We love Spanish with Ms. Diana!

Planting Our Seeds

We had a wonderful time planting seeds this week! We got to choose between vegetable or flower seeds. After writing out the steps to follow, we got to work planting. Then, we made labels for our pots so that we'd remember what we'd planted. We are also excited to see which plants sprout first.

Our Green World: Dissecting a Seed

This week, we started a unit study about plants called "Our Green World". On Monday, we started our K-W-L chart to tell what we Know about plants. We sure do know a lot already! We know that they need sun and water to grow. We know that they grow from seeds. We know that plants can make flowers, but not all plants do. We know that they grow from seeds. We also know that some plants can be eaten! Today, we dissected a lima bean seed. We soaked the seeds overnight in a cup of water to soften them. Then, we read a story about a boy who wears an interesting coat. He says he's hiding something under the coat and gives the clue that he keeps the same thing under his coat that a seed keeps under its coat. To solve the riddle, the class had to figure out what a seed keeps under its coat. We removed the seed coat and split the seed in half to find the embryo, or baby plant, inside the seed. It was interesting to discover which part would be the root and which part would be the seed. Then we learned that the cotyledons were actually food for the plant to grow until it could make it's own food from the sun. We went back to the story and realized that our guesses were right...the boy had food under his coat, just like a seed does! Here are a few photos of our budding scientists at work.

Happy 100 Days!

Can't you believe we've been in school this long already? We had a great time celebrating this special day!

Spelling Fun!

The whole class is excited to be taking spelling tests each week. We really enjoy practicing our words in class.

We enjoy singing songs to help us practice our words, using Bendaroos to spell our words, and writing them on white boards. This week, we'll make rainbow words, use play-doh to form our words, and practice writing words using our fingers in shaving cream or sand.