Unit 2 Families (Week 2) October 31-November 4

Unit Book
Oonga Boonga

Read Aloud:Keisha Then and Now

 Weekly Question and Vocabulary Related to book:

How do family members care for one another?
(lullaby, sob, tear, care, baby, pediatrician)

Literacy Small Groups

-Build a Word(What's In My Bag)-We are learning about the onset and rimes of words.  The onset is the fancy term for the beginning sound of a word and the rime is the string of sounds that follow.  For example, for the word “pig” the sound /p/ is the onset and /ig/ is the rime.  We will be playing a game called "What's in my bag?" We will send home instructions so you can play this game at home too.

-Build More Words -We will use magnifying glasses to be word detectives.  Using a game board with assorted pictures, we will find the word that the teacher segmented by onset and rime.  (Examples: f-ork=students found the word fork.)  (Large Group Activity)

-Journals- We will do more journal writing to write about what we like to do with our families.  After the teacher modeled saying a word slowly (like a turtle  and listening for sounds, students tried their own writing.  It is perfectly okay if their writing is simply drawings, symbols or just a few letters at this stage. We are improving and building confidence each week.  

Handwriting/Letter Groups

-Handwriting Without Tears Program-We will learn what the uppercase and lowercase letter Qq and Gg looks like.  We will sort magnetic letters to find matches for Qq and Gg.  Then we will hunt for them in our names and the names of our classmates.  We will use crayons to hunt for them on our papers.
Handwriting Without Tears Magic C Book- Letters Q and G

Math Small Groups

Pumpkin Math/ Use the Loop- We will practice counting objects in any order to understand that we always have the same amount no matter what order we count it.  We will pom/poms/cotton balls to drop on our pumpkin mat.  Some will fall in the pumpkin and some did not.  No matter where we started counting or how many fell on/off the mat we always had the same amount. A home activity will follow.
Stack a Tower (Quantities of 4)-We will be making sets of 4 with blocks. Students will be encouraged to make towers of 4. We will reinforce concepts such as 1:1 correspondence and discussing how the last number we say tells us how many.

Make a Match Partner Game- We will use dot cards to play a fun game to help us recognize quantities to five without counting and practice the skill of “subitizing.”  Students each will have a deck of dot cards.  They will turn over a card simultaneously and have to quickly tell if they had the same amount without counting.  Once they match all their cards the game was over.

Centers

Art Table- Paper Airplane Decorating and Constructing

Block Area- House and families 

Sensory Table- cornstarch and water
Book Area- Exploring Books about school
Easel-Markers and paper
Writing Table- ABC stamps
Dramatic Play-Taking care of babies
Math, Puzzles, and Manipulatives- Letters in a room hunt using clipboards
Science -Making Sound Harmonicas
Rug- dollhouse and families

Science/Social Studies/Math Circle Concepts
-How do we grow up?

- Math Concept- Stack & Take Down Four Cubes-We will work on understanding that no matter the order we count them, objects in a set remain the same.  We will use a set of blocks to build a house and counted them carefully.  Then, we used the same set of blocks to build a new house.  Each time, we counted the blocks to find the quantity stayed the same no matter what order we counted them in.  

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)

Songs, Word Plays, and Language

-Syllable Sound Off

-Our Good Morning Chant

-Number Rock by Steve and Greg

-If your a girl/If your a boy direction song
-Go Noodle Songs
-Cross Over Song(promoting crossing midline of our bodies)

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.