Unit 6 Week 4 Earth and Sky March 28-April 1

Earth and Sky Unit Week 3

Unit Book: Think Green

Weekly Question and Vocabulary Words:
How can we take care of the Earth?
(plastic, aluminum, recycle, paper, seperate, harm, bin)

Literacy Small Groups

Letter/Sound Correspondence- We will practice matching vowels with their sounds.  These letters (a,e,i,o,u) are often the most difficult to master for young learners.  Using magnetic letters, we will pull a vowel from our cup.  Beginning by placing our marker or crayon on the matching vowel, we will stretch out the vowel sound to reach the picture that makes that sound while tracing the line.  We will continue pulling vowels from our cup until all vowel sounds have been practiced three times each.

Handwriting-We will begin formal instruction on how to form lowercase letters.  Since lowercase letter formations  are new to most of us, we will learn these at a slower pace and use a variety of mediums to practice each letter.  This may be in the form of magna doodles, chalkboards, salt trays, etc.  We will rainbow write and pencil practice each letter  well.  This week, we will practice letters c & o.  These are magic C letters- Once we know how to make the lowercase c, we will learn to make many other letters that also begin that way.

Segmenting & Blending Sounds- We will continue our practice segmenting and blending sounds heard in words. Using three sounds words, we will color and cut out pictures puzzles.  We will use those puzzles to practice blending words together and then taking them apart.  Repeat this activity at home to help your child build this skill.

Journals- We will continue our practice writing in our journals.  This week, we will write about taking care of our earth.  We will slowly sound out words to write a sentence about one way we can help keep our planet a great place to live.

Math Small Groups

Duplo Sharing -We will learn what it means for quantities to be equal.  Equal quantities have the same amount.  Starting with a set number of Duplo blocks we will take turns adding blocks to make two towers.  When all the blocks have been used we will compare the towers to be sure they look the same and then count them to be sure they have the same amount of blocks in each tower.

Sharing Fairly- We will learn how to divide items equally into two groups.  Using a number dice, we will roll a number.  Using that number of bottles, we will sort the bottles fairly among the two recycling bins.  Each bin must have an equal number of bottles.  We will also learn that any leftover bottles can’t be placed into a group since it would make the group not equal.

Two Tree Sharing -We will continue our practice dividing quantities equally with a springtime tree sort.  Using a set number of spring objects we will sort them equally among the trees.

Sharing Fairly with Leftovers- After learning how to divide items equally into two groups, we will learn how to divide leftovers fairly.  Using an odd number dice, we will roll an odd number.  Using that number of paper sheets,  we will sort the sheets fairly among the two recycling bins.  Each bin must have an equal amount. When we come across the leftover sheet, we will cut it in half to be sure we have the same (or an equal) amount in each bin.  

Number Formation Practice- Using the Handwriting Without Tears program as a guide, we will continue to practice forming numbers 1-10.  This week, we will practice numbers 1 & 2 using wooden sticks, chalkboards or magna doodles and in our letter formation books.

Centers

Art Table-Recycled collages

Block Area- Recycling Center

Sensory Table- soil and tools for the soil
Book Area- Exploring Books about sky and earth
Easel-Markers and paper
Writing Table-Paper and words to trace
Dramatic Play-Flower Shop
Math, Puzzles, and Manipulatives-Spring Trees
Rug- Legos
Science/Social Studies/Math Circle Concepts
-Sharing Equally
-Sharing Leftovers
-Reusing our things from our house
-Recycle
Preschool Life Skills 
- We will be focusing on our curriculum of Preschool Life Skills during this time to help us transition into our new classroom.

1. When I call your name, stop what you are doing, look at me, and say,"Yes".
2. When I give you an instruction, do it "right away"
(Ask your child what do you do when your teacher tells you to do something.  They should reply "I do it right away." You can reinforce this at home too.  "Put your legos away and do it "right away""
3. When I give you  instructions, do them "right away" (multi-step directions)
4. When something is too hard say "Help me please"
5. When you want something from a teacher or friend, say "Excuse Me" to get their attention
6. When you want something from a teacher or friend, say "Excuse Me" to get their attention and then use your asking words(ie. May I have a turn?)

Songs, Word Plays, and Language

-Our Good Morning Chant

-Pick up the Litter Game (using letters on "trash")
-Let's Go Green
-Letter Sounds

Classroom Motivational System
We will be learning classroom routines and expectations within our new classroom.  In order to create a successful and rewarding environment, each child will have a motivational system. Our classroom system promotes positive classroom behavior through positive peer modeling and teachers providing positive reinforcement for desired behaviors. 

Unit 6 Week 3 Earth and Sky March 21-24 (No School Friday)

Earth and Sky Unit Week 3

Unit Book: A Time for all Seasons

Weekly Question and Vocabulary Words:
What changes in each season?
(summer, spring, winter, fall, perfect, chilly, bud)

Literacy Small Groups

Handwriting- We will be focusing on diagonal letters, we will practice writing the letters M and N  We will be working on our own letter formation books that will come home when our uppercase letter formations are complete.   

Ending Sounds Car Sort- We will use a car with a word. Then we will "drive our cars" on a road and stop at the ending sound. We will listen and identify the ending sound and place the car in the chart below.

 Ending Sounds- We will use frogs to practice segmenting sounds in words.  We will do one frog hop for each sound we hear.  On the last hop in each word, we will listen carefully for ending sounds and sort our pictures accordingly.  

Handwriting-We will review the formations for uppercase letters formed with diagonal lines.   We will review and practice the formations for the letters W, X, Y, and Z in our letter books.

Math Small Groups

Fill up the Frame Game- In pairs, we will roll a number cube and subitize the amount of dots we see.  Then each child will place the amount of dots of the cube.  We will identify how many dots each child has and how many empty spaces there are.  The goal is to fill up a ten frame.  

Sort for parts of 10-We will continue our work with adding parts to make a whole number.  This week, we  will work with the number 10.  Using the Mystery Cup game, we will dump and count ten cubes.  After sorting them into two parts we will record how many of each part to make a total of ten.

Towers to Nine- We will practice identifying numerals and matching quantities to numerals 1-9. We will use a number spinner to identify numbers 1-9.  We will  build towers with the corresponding number of cubes.  After we’ve built a tower for each number we will trace the numerals on our paper.

Seasonal Number Book-We will continue to practice parts of whole numbers.  Using pink tissue paper as spring cherry blossoms, we will use a whole number 6-10 and count out that many blossoms.  We will glue some blossoms to the tree and glue some that have fallen on the ground. We will trace numerals to show the whole number of blossoms as well as the numerals that show the number of blossoms on and off the spring tree.

Centers

Art Table-Seasonal Tree collages

Block Area- Building with blocks to build trees

Sensory Table- soil and tools for the soil
Book Area- Exploring Books about sky and earth
Easel-Markers and paper
Writing Table-Paper and words to trace
Dramatic Play-Flower Shop
Math, Puzzles, and Manipulatives-Spring Trees
Rug- Legos
Science/Social Studies/Math Circle Concepts
- Signs of the Seasons
-- Jobs All Year
-Trees and Soil
-Clothing that Protects us in different seasons

Preschool Life Skills 

- We will be focusing on our curriculum of Preschool Life Skills during this time to help us transition into our new classroom.

1. When I call your name, stop what you are doing, look at me, and say,"Yes".
2. When I give you an instruction, do it "right away"
(Ask your child what do you do when your teacher tells you to do something.  They should reply "I do it right away." You can reinforce this at home too.  "Put your legos away and do it "right away""
3. When I give you  instructions, do them "right away" (multi-step directions)
4. When something is too hard say "Help me please"
5. When you want something from a teacher or friend, say "Excuse Me" to get their attention
6. When you want something from a teacher or friend, say "Excuse Me" to get their attention and then use your asking words(ie. May I have a turn?)

Songs, Word Plays, and Language

-Our Good Morning Chant

-Windy was the weather
-Letter and sound connections
-Growing Song

Classroom Motivational System
We will be learning classroom routines and expectations within our new classroom.  In order to create a successful and rewarding environment, each child will have a motivational system. Our classroom system promotes positive classroom behavior through positive peer modeling and teachers providing positive reinforcement for desired behaviors. 

High School Art Show

Yesterday, we visited the BHS art show.  We loved looking at all of the interesting artwork!

Unit 6 week 2 Earth and Sky March 14-18

Earth and Sky Unit Week 2

Unit Book: One Dark Night

Weekly Question and Vocabulary Words:
What happens when the weather changes?
(stray, dawn, thunder, lightning, prepare)

Literacy Small Groups

Handwriting- We will be focusing on diagonal letters, we will practice writing the letters R and K  We will be working on our own letter formation books that will come home when our uppercase letter formations are complete.   

Blending PhonemesWe will  continue to practice blending phonemes in words.  Phonemes are the individual sounds heard in each spoken word.  We will play two weather themed games to practice this skill.  First we will use our bodies to represent each phoneme in a word.  The wind will blow them close together to blend the phonemes together and make the word.  Then, using a stormy song, we will guess the animals that move fast in a storm.  For example, if the song says “/d/ /o/ /g/, the answer is” dog.”   Practice blending phonemes at home!

Sound Search- We will dig in a pot of gold for hidden treasures.  We will say the word carefully and listen for the beginning sound we hear.  Then, we will match that sound to a letter on our gameboard.  
Handwriting-We will review the formations for uppercase letters formed with diagonal lines.   We will review and practice the formations for the letters A and V in our letter books.

Journal Writing- (Part 2 of this activity)We will write a two-part journal entry.  By drawing a line in the middle of our paper we will divide it into day and night.  We will write and illustrate one activity we can do during the day and one we can do at night.  We will focus on being great illustrators so that day and night are obvious in our pictures by adding important details.  

Math Small Groups

Sets of 8 and 9- We will be working in pairs to count sets of 8 and 9.  We will take turns counting a set of red cubes.  The next child will count on as they add to the cubes to make a set of 8 or a set of 9.

Under the Blanket-We will make another class book.  Using 6 cats, we will hide some under a blanket and leave some showing.  We will challenge one another to determine how many cats are hidden under the blanket.

Starry Night Math- We will practice recognizing and matching quantities to numerals 5-10. After rolling a number cube, children will add that many stars to their cup.  When the game is over, they will use those stars to fill up the night sky on their paper

One Dark Night Sequencing- We will be sequencing the events from our unit story, One Dark Night.  Then we will be writing the numbers.

8 and 9 In the Box/Out of the Box- In our unit story, One Dark Night, the boy in the story kept stray kittens safe in a box during a thunderstorm.  We will be placing sets of 8 or 9 kittens in a box and out of the box.

Centers

Art Table-Weather collages

Block Area- Building with blocks

Sensory Table- water and colanders to make falling rain
Book Area- Exploring Books about sky and earth
Easel-Markers and paper
Writing Table-Day /Night Words
Dramatic Play-Cats with boxes and bathrobes to role play unit book
Math, Puzzles, and Manipulatives-Independent activity(Cat in a box)
Rug- Legos
Science/Social Studies/Math Circle Concepts
-Weather changes
-Making and Breaking apart sets of objects
-Magic C letter review
-How to prepare for weather
-Introduce Seasons

Preschool Life Skills 

- We will be focusing on our curriculum of Preschool Life Skills during this time to help us transition into our new classroom.

1. When I call your name, stop what you are doing, look at me, and say,"Yes".
2. When I give you an instruction, do it "right away"
(Ask your child what do you do when your teacher tells you to do something.  They should reply "I do it right away." You can reinforce this at home too.  "Put your legos away and do it "right away""
3. When I give you  instructions, do them "right away" (multi-step directions)
4. When something is too hard say "Help me please"
5. When you want something from a teacher or friend, say "Excuse Me" to get their attention
6. When you want something from a teacher or friend, say "Excuse Me" to get their attention and then use your asking words(ie. May I have a turn?)

Songs, Word Plays, and Language

-Our Good Morning Chant

-Windy was the weather
-Letter and sound connections

Classroom Motivational System
We will be learning classroom routines and expectations within our new classroom.  In order to create a successful and rewarding environment, each child will have a motivational system. Our classroom system promotes positive classroom behavior through positive peer modeling and teachers providing positive reinforcement for desired behaviors. 

African Grey Parrot classroom visit this week

I

Meet Crystal, an African grey parrot, who will be visiting our classroom from the Burlington Science Center for this week.   We are beginning our Earth and Sky unit today so we are happy to have her join our discovery into this unit. 

March 7-11 Earth and Sky Unit

Earth and Sky Unit Week 1

Unit Book: Night Shift Daddy

Weekly Question and Vocabulary Words:
What happens when day changes to night?
(cloud, awaken, day, star, snore, night)

Literacy Small Groups

Handwriting- We will be focusing on magic C letters, we will practice writing the letters S and J  We will be working on our own letter formation books that will come home when our uppercase letter formations are complete.   

Phoneme Segmenting-We will begin learning how to segment phonemes in words.  Phonemes are individual sounds heard in words.  For example, the word bike has three phonemes we can hear- /b/-i/-/k/.  This skill lends itself to the turtle talk we use to journal write.  We will use chip to slide and count the number of phonemes we hear for each picture.  We will then say it ourselves while using a dot marker to mark each phoneme.

Mystery Sounds- Using a mystery bag, students will practice listening for beginning sounds and matching those sounds to the corresponding letter.  One student will pull three picture cards from a the mystery bag and say them for the group.  Students will use a dot marker to  record the letter that makes that sounds try to get four in a row! 

Handwriting-We will review the formations for uppercase letters formed with curved lines.   We will review and practice the formations for the letters D, P and B in our letter books.

Journal Writing-We will write a two-part journal entry.  By drawing a line in the middle of our paper we will divide it into day and night.  We will write and illustrate one activity we can do during the day and one we can do at night.  We will focus on being great illustrators so that day and night are obvious in our pictures by adding important details.  

Math Small Groups

Night Numbers- We will work to recognize, name and write numbers 1-10.  We will dim the lights and use flashlights to search our classroom for number stars in the “night sky.”  We will trace each number on our recording sheet after we found each one.  

Starry Night Math- We will practice recognizing and matching quantities to numerals 5-10. After rolling a number cube, children will add that many stars to their cup.  When the game is over, they will use those stars to fill up the night sky on their paper

How Many Ways- We will discover the many combinations that make a whole number.  Using 6 colored chips, we will begin with our counters in all one color. One by one we will flip a counter to make a number combination. For example, 1 yellow and 5 red make six, 2 yellow and 4 red make six.  There are many ways to make the number 6!

How Many Am I Hiding- We will have fun playing a guessing game that will help us learn to count on to get to a given number.  Using 5 cubes, we will hide some behind our backs and reveal the leftover cubes.  Players will have to count on to guess the hidden amount and record it on their sheet

Star Gazing Counting Book- We will practicing matching quantities to written numerals while making our own star gazing counting book.  We will identify numbers 5-10 and trace their formations.  Then, we will cut and count out that many stars to paste on each page of our book.  

Centers

Art Table-Day and Night painting (multi-step activity)

Block Area- Building Rocket ships with blocks

Sensory Table- black beans with stars sorting
Book Area- Exploring Books about sky and earth
Easel-Markers and paper
Writing Table-Day /Night Words
Dramatic Play-Pancake Flipping
Math, Puzzles, and Manipulatives-Independent activity
Rug- Legos
Science/Social Studies/Math Circle Concepts
-Energy from Electricity (lights)
-Going to Sleep Routines
-What Do I spy?
-Making and Breaking sets to count

Preschool Life Skills 

- We will be focusing on our curriculum of Preschool Life Skills during this time to help us transition into our new classroom.

1. When I call your name, stop what you are doing, look at me, and say,"Yes".
2. When I give you an instruction, do it "right away"
(Ask your child what do you do when your teacher tells you to do something.  They should reply "I do it right away." You can reinforce this at home too.  "Put your legos away and do it "right away""
3. When I give you  instructions, do them "right away" (multi-step directions)
4. When something is too hard say "Help me please"
5. When you want something from a teacher or friend, say "Excuse Me" to get their attention
6. When you want something from a teacher or friend, say "Excuse Me" to get their attention and then use your asking words(ie. May I have a turn?)

Songs, Word Plays, and Language

-Our Good Morning Chant

-Animals in the Desert Song

Classroom Motivational System
We will be learning classroom routines and expectations within our new classroom.  In order to create a successful and rewarding environment, each child will have a motivational system. Our classroom system promotes positive classroom behavior through positive peer modeling and teachers providing positive reinforcement for desired behaviors.