Tuesday, November 29

The children started by lighting the Advent Wreath and talking about the first week of Advent known as Hope.  Our devotion was about how we wander from God and how He sent Jesus to look after and to love us.    This was our prayer:

Father, Thank you for sending Your Son.  Thank you for Your plan to rescue us and to save us.  Help me prepare for Jesus' birth.  Amen

We did more measuring today in math.  The students used their rulers and measured and also drew different lengths in centimeters.

We played Beat the Clock in phonics.  They had 1 minute to write down as many words with the CK ending as they could.  Leighton and JoVon won with 8 words!  Then we played to see who could write the most short O words.  Jacob won that round!  Then the children had CK words to prove and find.

We read with partners for reading and worked on the Long E sound spelled e, ee, ea, ey, or y.  Then the children had to do a crossword puzzle with their story vocabulary words.

3 of our friends' names start with today's handwriting letter.  The uppercase J.  Check out our all stars today!

Today for Christmas Around the World we traveled to France.  We made paper shoes and stuffed them with paper straw and hung them on our tree.  

We played Verb Charades today in grammar.  The children picked a card with a verb on it and had to act it out.  Then the children guessed which verb each friend was acting out.  They all did a great job!

Monday, November 28

We have a special friend who celebrated their birthday today!  Happy Birthday and God's Blessings!

Today we got our our Advent wreath and talked about the season of Advent.  The students learned that it is not only when we celebrate the birth of Jesus but we are preparing for the second coming of our Lord.  Each day we will have a special devotion that prepares us during this season.

In religion we learned about David's son Solomon.  God told him to ask for anything he wanted!  He asked for wisdom.  When I asked the students that question, many said money, video games, books, toys.  We talked about how God gave Solomon wisdom but much more too, and God gives us many things to like friends, family, and salvation.

We gathered together for math and talked about our solid figures more.  We looked at the faces, vertices, and edges.  Then we learned about lines of symmetry.

We listened to a Folk Tale for reading.  Head, Body, Legs: A story from Liberia.  We found Liberia on the map and listened to this funny story.

We started phonics by listening to words and deciding if it had a long or short vowel  The children had to use their whiteboards, write what vowel they heard and if it was long or short.  They did a great job listening for the vowel sounds in words.  After we learned about the -CK ending.  When we hear the K sounds at the end of words we need to decide how to spell it.  We learned we use CK at the end if the vowel is a short vowel.  The students wrote each of their CK spelling words and marked them correctly!

During lunch we had a snack which was brought in by Nina's Grandma.  She brought cookies for the class as well as a card.  It was so nice of her and we will keep praying for Nina on her new adventure.

We started a new Social Studies unit today.  It is about people long ago.  We read the story, When I Was Young from our social studies book.  Then I showed them things from my family long ago like my family tree and the boat my ancestors came over on and the passenger list too!  

We started our Christmas Around the World ornaments today.  We visited the country of CHINA!  We made paper lanterns!  

Parents came in this afternoon to read with our groups!  

Tuesday, November 22nd

We had our science test first thing in the morning but before we took it we did a little brain exercises to wake ourselves up!  We touched our toes, jumped up and down, spun around, and did 3 squats.  Then we were ready to take our test.  I think it worked because the students did very well!  Great job!

We did more solid figures today for math.  They are really getting their figures down well!

Today in phonics, we played the game Slap.  I wrote words from both phonetic skills 1 and 2.  Then the students had to use flyswatters to pick the ones using the clues I gave.  It was an very active and exciting game.  

Handwriting was the Capital G.  Check out today's all stars!

After lunch the children took off the milk carton and clay on their fossils.  Here are a few of them!!

This afternoon we took time to relax.  We watched Charlie Brown Thanksgiving.

We had an ice cream party in honor of our friend who is leaving.  They had chocolate or vanilla ice cream, chocolate syrup, caramel syrup, sprinkles and of course whipped cream!  The children had fun celebrating their friend!

At the end of the day the children said goodbye to a friend and classmate.  It was sad to see her leave.  She will be missed.  Good luck Nina in all that you do!  We love you and will miss you.  God bless all that you do.

GOD BLESS YOUR THANKSGIVING!  THERE IS SO MUCH WE HAVE TO BE THANKFUL FOR!  I AM THANKFUL FOR EACH AND EVERY STUDENT IN THIS CLASSROOM.  

Monday, November 21st

We started with a Thanksgiving Devotion.  We talked about how its important to say Thank You.  We talked about sending thank you notes for gifts people give us but also say thank you to parents and friends for nice things they do for you. We came up with some examples.

Some examples were:

Thank you for dinner

Thank you for helping

Thank you for playing with me

Thank you for the gift

Thank you for being my friend

Today in math we talked about solid figures.  We looked at some shapes in class and talked about faces, edges and vertices.

We wrote what we were thankful for today and then put the feathers on our turkey!

For phonics we tried to see how many words we could make out of the word THANKSGIVING

This afternoon we played Science Jeopardy with our science test questions to help us prepare for our science test tomorrow.  

The last thing today was reading mentors.  Thank you to those who were able to join us today!

REMINDERS FOR TOMORROW:

SCIENCE TEST

ICE CREAM PARTY

Friday, November 18th

Since we will not have a homework slip next week, anyone who turned their homework slip in this week that wasn't picked last week was able to pick from the prize box! Some of my friends will get to each lunch with a friend from 2O, some will eat lunch with me at my desk, some got a homework pass, some get to move their seat and some get to bring in a toy or be line leader or teacher assistant today!  WOW what great things they all get to do!!

In math we practiced on our math board measuring squares and rectangles before we did today assignment triangles.  The practice helped and they did much better on today's assignment.

We made our fossils this morning!  We took milk cartons and first covered the inside with petroleum jelly.  The kids thought this felt gross!  Then each child got clay and they had to flatten it like a pancake and put it in the bottom of their carton.  After they had their clay in, I called the children to my desk and we made an imprint in the clay.  After everyone had their imprints done, I added the plaster mixture into the cartons.  Here is what they look like.  They will take a few days to harden then the children will rip off the carton, throw out the clay and have their very own fossil!

The children had 2 specials today, Art and Gym!  

This afternoon we had a few parents join us for our favorite part of the day!!  GAMES

This weekend is the Barnes and Noble Book Fair.  I will be reading at 12:30 on Saturday Afternoon! Come on in and hear a good book :)

 

Thursday, November 17th

We started our day learned more about the Lord's Prayer.  Today we talked about  how God's will is more important than our will.  We read the example of Jesus in the garden and how He knew it was God's will for Him to die for us.  We also went around and shared our prayer requests.  There were many for family traveling, family who are sick and many were thankful for friends and families.

In math we talked more about our shapes and today we learned perimeter.  We measured the sides of squares and rectangles and added them up.  We still need to work on this a little more.

The children finished their reading tests.  This was a harder test than the first but they all did well.

Today we had the lowercase q for handwriting.  Check out today's all stars.

We worked in groups this afternoon to do a practice test for science.  The children did a great job at working in teams to get the right answers.  Here are a few of our friends working hard!

In phonics they children played beat the clock again but today with phonetic skill 2.  Then they had to sort the words in either phonetic skill 1 or phonetic skill 2.

For music the children learned half notes.  The children clapped the rhythm and sang the song Page's Train.

In weekly reader the children learned about the Pilgrims!

Wednesday, November 16th

We had our Pray and Praise Chapel Service today.  The children met in the chapel families and did prayers as a small group before entering the Worship Center.  Mrs. Horvath's class led us in prayers and songs from our All God's People Sing Hymnals.  It was great to use our voices to praise our Lord.

We started the first part of our reading test.  The children listened to a passage I read then answered questions on it.  Then they read a passage on their own and answered questions.  We will finish tomorrow with another story and our vocabulary section.

We went on our field trip today to the Clinton Macomb Public Library.  The children got a in depth tour of the library and even got to see the sorting room!  They sang a few songs, read a story and went on a scavenger hunt.  They all learned something new especially that our church is part of the mural on the wall!

We finally finished our turkeys today!  They are up in the hallway for everyone to see!  They look great!  Come on in and check them out!

We had a few friends bring in their show and tell.  We had a Star Wars Sand Kit, Panda from Frankenmuth, 1st Grade graduation bear and an original Beanie Baby!  Lots of neat things!

We worked more on shapes today in math.  We talked about quadrilaterals, pentagons, and hexagons.  We talked about the number of sides and angles they each have. 

We finished reading all about our habitats.  The children are bringing home their book along with their study guide.  The test is NEXT TUESDAY the 22nd!  The children may keep their books home until then!

In phonics we played Beat the Clock where I gave the children the letters: d, l, p, n, s and the vowels a, and e and they had 5 minutes to make as many words as they could using phonetic skill 1.  Then we learned phonetic skill 2.

Phonetic Skill 2

• Phonetic Skill 2 is: when a vowel is followed by two guardian consonants, the vowel sound is short.
• When a Blend is used at the end of a word, the Blend gets two guardian stars because you hear two sounds.
• To prove the vowel sound in a Phonetic Skill 2 word: 1) go under the word, moving left to right, and place an x under the vowel; 2) go to the end of the word, up and around the consonants, and mark each consonant with a guardian star; 3) move left to the vowel. The guardian consonants make the vowel sound short, so mark the vowel short.
• If the word begins with a Blend, mark the Blend first as you work, left to right, under the word.
• Some words will begin and end with a Blend (e.g., blast). Be sure to mark both Blends.
• Some words will end with a consonant followed by a Digraph (e.g., bench). Be sure to mark the consonant with one guardian star and the Digraph with one guardian star, as it is one consonant sound.

Tuesday, November 15th

We started our morning by making Thanksgiving cards to put in the Thanksgiving Baskets that will be given out to families in our community.  The children brainstormed ideas of what to write on the board we came up with:

Happy Thanksgiving

God Loves You.

We are praying for you.

I hope you enjoy the food.

God Bless You.

Jesus Loves You.

The children decorated these cards and they will be added to the Thanksgiving Baskets that will be picked up this week.  What a blessing it is that they can help show the love of Jesus this Thanksgiving.

Phonics we review phonetic skill 1.  

Phonetic Skill 1

• The term guardian consonant is used to identify the consonant following a vowel and to distinguish it from other consonants in a word.
• When a vowel is followed by a single guardian consonant (and nothing else), the vowel sound is short.
• A guardian consonant is marked with a guardian star (*).
• To prove the vowel sound in a Phonetic Skill 1 word: 1) go under the word, moving left to right, and place an x under the vowel; 2) go to the end of the word, up and around the consonant, and mark above the consonant with the guardian star (*); 3) move left to the vowel. The guardian consonant makes the vowel sound short, so the vowel is marked short.

Our letter for handwriting today was the lowercase j.  Check out our all stars!

We learned about ponds and ocean habitats today in science.  

I met with the children today and we proofread their turkey stories.  Then the children made their turkeys by cutting their feathers, wings, making heads, beaks and legs for their turkeys.  Tomorrow the children will rewrite their turkey letters on turkey paper and glue them onto their turkeys.