Thursday, January 28, 2016

Unit 5: Journey to a Jungle: February 1-5

Weekly Question and Vocabulary Related to book:

  Unit Book: Amazing Jungle
What is a jungle?
(trunk, twig, branch, explore, hunt, graze, jungle)
Literacy Small Groups
Rhyming-We will continue our practice rhyming.  Through a jungle bingo rhyming game we will learn to identify and produce rhyming words.  We will listen for words that rhyme to identify a rhyming pair however before we can place a marker on our boards we must come up with our own rhyming word to rhyme with the other words in the group.  We will use both real words and nonsense words to create our own rhymes

Letter V-We will learn what the uppercase and lowercase letter Vv looks like.  We will sort magnetic letters to find matches for Vv.  We will also hunt for them in our names and the names of our classmates.  We will use crayons to hunt for them on our papers.  Keep an eye out for Vv’s while out and about with your child!!


Rhyming-We will continue to practice producing our own rhyming groups.  Using a picture to get started, students will think of words that rhyme with the picture.  For each word they rhyme they will earn an animal stamp for their paper.  Have your child practice producing his/her own rhymes while riding in the car or waiting in line or for an appointment.  

Letter Y- We will learn what the uppercase and lowercase letter Yy looks like.  We will sort magnetic letters to find matches for Yy.  We will also hunt for them in our names and the names of our classmates.  We will use crayons to hunt for them on our papers. Search for Yy’s with your child at home- ask him/her if it is upper or lowercase. 

Journal Writing- Using our writing journals, we will write about our favorite jungle animals.  We will carefully sound out each word and some of us will even  practice using our fingers to add spaces between words in our sentences.  We will work hard to add colorful details to our animal illustrations.  We are becoming fabulous writers!

Handwriting/Letter Groups
- We will be begin formalized letter formations next week.  We will begin with straight line letters.  Please reinforce with your child that "we always start our letters at the top." This is an important skill in formations.

Math Small Groups
Patterns- We will begin learning about patterns.  Using cubes, we will duplicate a pattern from our papers.  We will then try to extend the pattern and color our papers to show our work. Patterns are everywhere- look for them both inside and outside- be sure they repeat before calling it a pattern!

Rhythm Patterns- We learn more about patterns by using our bodies to make our own rhythm patterns.  We will practice repeating movements with our bodies (clapping, tapping, etc) then we will make our own pattern strips to make rhythm patterns.  For example, we can tap, tap, clap, tap, tap, clap or shake clap, shake, clap.  Try these at home


Nature's Patterns- Patterns can be seen in our natural world.  We will explore patterns on familiar jungle animals by looking at & discussing photos of a zebra, tiger, tropical bird and snake.  We will then recreate their patterns using cut paper and glue.

One Less Jungle Game- We will practice the concept of one less using a jungle dice game.  After rolling the dice, we will count out that many counters and then take away one.  We will color that many animals on our sheet.  We will challenge ourselves to guess how many without using the counters after a few tries.  We will also discuss more and less concepts.

Pattern or Not- We will play a  fun “Pattern or Not” game.  Using beads and pipe cleaners (snake body) we will create and extend a partner’s pattern. After some practice extending patterns we will challenge one another to decide if the design we made for our partner is a “pattern or not.”  Use the “Pattern Snakes” activity sheet to have some fun with this at home.
Centers
Art Table-Animal prints to add to our mural
Block Area- Zoo animals with labels for children to create zoo cages
Sensory Table-Water, leaves, frogs,
Book Area- Exploring Books about jungle and desert
Easel-Markers and paper
Writing Table-Zookeeper Lists
Dramatic Play-Zoo
Math, Puzzles, and Manipulatives- Playdough and sticks to make animal "cages"
Science - We are preparing to have a special visitor from the Science Center.
Rug- Safari jeeps, animals, and people

Science/Social Studies/Math Circle Concepts
-What is a pattern?
-Patterns in nature
-Day and Night animals
-Patterns in sounds

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
-Down in the Jungle
-Five Little Monkeys
-Rhyming Identifying games
-Jungle Movement

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. 

Thursday, January 21, 2016

Farm Unit Week 4 How does food get from the farm to your house? January 25-29









Book Order Due by 8 AM on January 22 if you interested in ordering

Unit Book: An Orange in January

Weekly Question and Vocabulary Related to book:
How does food get from a farm to your house?
(plump, drenched, transport, journey, segment, gleamed)

Literacy Small Groups
Rhyming-We will practice our rhyming skills.  Using dot markers we will hunt for farmily words that rhyme with the word the teacher says.

Letter Roll and Write- We will roll a cube with straight line letters (T, I, E, L,H). Then we will record which letter each child rolls by writing down on on recording sheet. We will talk about the sound each letter makes as well.

Rhyming Ipads Activity- We will continue our practice rhyming with a fun rhyming activity on our iPads.  Using a qr code reader, we will scan codes around our room.  We will need to listen to the word on our ipad and circle the word that rhymes on a recording sheet.

Letter E- We will learn what the uppercase and lowercase letter Ee looks like.  We will sort magnetic letters to find matches for Ee.  We will also hunt for them in our names and the names of our classmates.  We will use crayons to hunt for them on our papers. Search for Ee’s with your child at home- ask him/her if it is upper or lowercase.

Journal Writing-  Once we have learned about an orange’s journey to our homes in the middle of winter, we will write about it in our journals. We will make our own list and write the steps an orange takes to get to our homes.  We will slowly turtle talk our words and write the sounds that we hear. We will illustrate our thoughts using many colors and details .

Handwriting/Letter Groups
-Handwriting Without Tears Program-Straight Line Letter Books

Math Small Groups
Take Away Stories- We will use orange pom poms to practice subtraction story problems on an orange tree. We will “pick” the oranges from the tree to discover how many are left and will even try to solve how many oranges were picked.  Use this activity at home to help your child practice the skill of taking away.

Part/Part/Whole- We will look more at whole numbers and number parts.  Using pigs in a pen, we will take a whole number and use our pigs to make number parts.  For example, using the number 7 we can place our pigs into 2 parts: 5+2, 6+1, 3+4, etc.  Try this activity at home!

How many are left? We will continue to work on our subtraction skills by solving farm story problems.  We listen to a math story dictated by the teacher and use animals counters to solve how many are left.  We will then trace our answers on our recording sheet.

Orange Segmenting- We will segment a paper orange into 6 parts. We will show how parts of the orange can equal a whole. (ie. 2parts and 4 parts are 1 whole)

Centers
Art Table-Finishing our farm animal books
Block Area- farm animals
Sensory Table-Washing produce(sponges, plastic fruit, soapy water)
Book Area- Exploring Books about community
Easel-Markers and paper
Writing Table-Farm Lists
Dramatic Play-Lemonade Stand
Math, Puzzles, and Manipulatives- Letters in a room hunt using clipboards
Science - Farm animal skulls from the Science Center
Rug- legos

Science/Social Studies/Math Circle Concepts
-Planes, trains, and automobiles
-What Does It Do?
-Good for you food
-Track the Sun

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
-Farmer in the Dell
-Apples and Bananas Song
-Rhyming Identifying games
-Simon Says (Farmer Lisa Says.....)

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. 

Wednesday, January 20, 2016

Emergency Situation Yesterday

Below is a message from our Director's Blog.  I am a Burlington parent as well as a teacher in town so I understand your concerns.  Our classroom was dismissed by the time this event took place. I am proud to be part of the wonderful staff at BECC and watch every staff member move into action to ensure every child was cared for.  
January 19, 2016
Dear Parents/Guardians,
Burlington High School received an anonymous Skype phone call this afternoon threatening the school.  The Emergency Response Team was immediately gathered, which includes school personnel and the Burlington Police Department.  After evaluating the situation, and due to the fact that many other schools in Massachusetts received this type of threat last Friday, and many more today, the police assessment was that this was a low level threat and most likely a hoax.
Students at the BECC were dismissed as a result of this threat (those students in our morning programs were already home).  All BECC employees did a fantastic job of keeping the children calm in this atypical situation.
At this time, school is scheduled to take place on Wednesday.  There will be an increased police presence in the all of the Burlington Schools tomorrow during both arrival and dismissal times, and we will update everyone if the situation changes.
Going forward, a reverse 911 call should go out to all families notifying them of any situation.  BECC staff will follow-up with phone calls to make sure that we make contact directly with you or another one of your child’s emergency contacts.
On Wednesday afternoon, please check your child’s backpack when he or she gets home as there will be a letter describing the specific BECC procedures in more detail.
If you have questions or concerns about this incident or your child’s safety, please do not hesitate to call me at 781-273-7632 or e-mail me atclark@burlington.bpsk12.org.
Sincerely,
Deborah Clark

Thursday, January 7, 2016

Farm Unit Week 2 January 11-15

Unit Book:Otis

Weekly Question and Vocabulary Related to book:
How do machines help farmers?
(tractor, startle, parade, fancy, pond, soil)

Literacy Small Groups
How Does it End? We will learn about how words sound when the onset (beginning sound) is deleted from the word.  We will sing a farm song where students need to guess the farm animal or item based on hearing just the rime (entire ending.) We will place a marker to on a picture mat to make our guess.  

Letter W- We will learn what the uppercase and lowercase letter Ww looks like.  We will sort magnetic letters to find matches for Ww.  We will also hunt for them in our names and the names of our classmates.  We will use crayons to hunt for them on our papers.  Look for upper and lowercase Ww’s at home, in the car or out and about!

Onset Rime Bingo- We will review segmenting words by onset & rime.  Using things found on a farm, we will practice saying words by segmenting the beginning sound and entire ending. We will work on a new skill to take away the beginning sound and say only the ending of each word (deleting the onset) to cover a spot on our board.

Letter R- We will learn what the uppercase and lowercase letter Rr looks like.  We will sort magnetic letters to find matches for Rr.  We will also hunt for them in our names and the names of our classmates.  We will use crayons to hunt for them on our papers. Search for Rr’s with your child at home- ask him/her if it is upper or lowercase.

Journal Writing
We will write  in our journals about what plants need to grow. We will slowly turtle talk our words and write the sounds that we hear. We will illustrate our thoughts using many colors and details .

Handwriting/Letter Groups
-Handwriting Without Tears Program-Straight Line Letter Books

Math Small Groups
How Many Animals in the Barn? We will work  on our counting and subitizing skills to fill our barn with animals.  Using a dot dice, we will roll to determine how many animals to place in our barn using a 10 grid.  We will discuss how many animals we have and how many  more we need to fill our barn.  After playing this game with counters, we will play our final round with dot stickers to make our own animals to take home.

Stuck in the Mud- We will use animals counters to recreate a scene from the Otis story.  This time more than one animal will be stuck in the mud.  Using our counters we will  hide animals under a card and leave some showing.  We will have to guess how many animals are stuck in the mud given out total number of animals.  Using dot stickers , we will make our own number stories to share

Making Five- We will work to make combinations of 5.  Using cube trains, we will start with a given number of cubes (0-4.) We will count on to find out how many more cubes we need to add to make 5 cubes in all. We will record our answers by coloring in the additional cubes on our sheets.

Otis Number Writing and Sequence- We will write the numbers 1 through 6 on a strip. Then we will color ,cut, then place pictures in order to retell our story of Otis.

Centers
Art Table- Fruit and Vegetable Prints
Block Area- farms
Sensory Table- Alphabet Soup
Book Area- Exploring Books about community
Easel-Markers and paper
Writing Table-Farm Lists
Dramatic Play-Tools Shop
Math, Puzzles, and Manipulatives- Letters in a room hunt using clipboards
Science - Wool
Rug- legos

Science/Social Studies/Math Circle Concepts
-Caring for plants
-Reenact the book Otis
-Wheat from the farm
-How Many Scoops

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

Songs, Word Plays, and Language
-Our Good Morning Chant
-Farmer in the Dell
-Freeze Game
-Simon Says (Farmer Lisa Says.....)


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. 

Tuesday, December 22, 2015

January Unit 4 Farms January 4-8

Happy New Year!

Unit Book:
What is a Farm

Weekly Question and Vocabulary Related to book:
What is a farm?
(barn, farmer, wool, silo, gate, map)

Literacy Small Groups
-Same Sound Bingo- We will practice identifying rhyming pairs with farm rhyming bingo.  After listening to the teacher say a word, children will repeat the word and then find a rhyming farm picture on his/her mat while working to get five in a row.

Letter L We will learn what the uppercase and lowercase letter Ll looks like.  We will sort magnetic letters to find matches for Ll.  We will also hunt for them in our names and the names of our classmates.  We will use crayons to hunt for them on our papers. Search for Ll's with your child at home- ask him/her if it is upper or lowercase.  


-We share sounds- We will be listening to sounds we hear in the beginning of words. We will match words that share the same sounds in the initial sound of each word. For example, cow and corn share the same sound. Gate and goat, wig and wagon, etc.

Letter G- We will learn what the uppercase and lowercase letter Gg looks like.  We will sort magnetic letters to find matches for Gg.  We will also hunt for them in our names and the names of our classmates.  We will use crayons to hunt for them on our papers.  Look for upper and lowercase Ggs at home, in the car or out and about!

-Journal Writing-We will be writing in our journals. We will be writing about our the foods we eat from the farm. We will focus on the directionality of our writing (staring at the left and continuing to the right of the page) and continue our  practice turtle talking and listening for sounds in our words.  Remember, writing is a developmental skill and we are all working at our own pace and improving each week. (I like to eat........). We will discuss foods that come from the farm to brainstorm.

Handwriting/Letter Groups
-Handwriting Without Tears Program-Straight Line Letter Books

Math Small Groups
Stack and Take Down 5 (Subitizing to 5)- We will use farm pictures to sort by number.  Using the skill of subitizing we will recognize quantities in dots and fingers.  We will decide quickly whether there are 1, 2, 3, 4 or 5.  We will work to be sure this skill is automatic.  The more practice we have with this the more automatic our responses will become


All the Ways to 5-We will play a game and try to show different ways to make 5 such as 2 fingers, 2 dots, or the number 2 are all different ways to show 2. We will play a game to demonstrate this skill up to the amount of 5.

Subsitizing Cube Tracing Activity- We will work more on our subitizing skills (the ability to quickly identify the number of items in a small set without counting) while also practicing numeral writing skills.  We will roll a dice to instantly recognize the quantity and trace that number on our papers.


Take A Stack and Roll- We will use a new tool called a part/part/whole mat to better understand numbers through five. We will use farm counters to break down numbers into parts.  For example, to make 5 (the whole number) we can use parts such as 1 and 4 or 2 and 3.  The two parts make the whole.  We will experiment using different numbers by placing our animals on the parts of our mats.   
Centers
Art Table- Barn animals for a farm mural
Block Area- farms
Sensory Table- Corn kernels (feed for hungry chickens)
Book Area- Exploring Books about community
Easel-Markers and paper
Writing Table- Upper Case and Lower Case Letter X coloring
Dramatic Play-Taking Care of Animals
Math, Puzzles, and Manipulatives- Letters in a room hunt using clipboards
Science -
Rug- legos

Science/Social Studies/Math Circle Concepts
-Farm Food Sort
-Animal Differences (2 legs/4 legs animals, animals that lay eggs/not lay eggs)
-Farm to Store process
-Farmer To Do List: What would be on the list?

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"

Songs, Word Plays, and Language
-Our Good Morning Chant
-Farmer in the Dell
-Growing Sound (Things that grow)
-Listening to Rhythm in music

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. 

Gingerbread Musical Pictures




Thursday, December 17, 2015

December 14-23 Gingerbread Unit

Our Family Musical Performance: 
Tomorrow
Friday December 18 at 10:45 promptly.

Unit Book:
The Gingerbread Man
The Gingerbread Boy
The Gingerbread Girl
Vocabulary Related to book:
(catching, decorating, bakery,oven,dough, frosting)

Literacy Small Groups
-Sequencing Story- We will review the story elements from the The Gingerbread Man  Then discuss and look at pictures from the story.   Finally we will cut up to 6 pictures and placed them in sequential order to retell the story.  We will retell the story to a peer.

-Rhyming Pairs- We will review how rhyming words "sound alot alike" such as bat and cat. Then we will discuss rhyming words from our books such as cow and sow. Then we will match rhyming pairs in a chart.

-Thumbs Up- We will identify rhyming and non-rhyming word pairs. We will listen to two words and give a thumbs up or a thumbs down. Then we will cut and sort word pairs based on if they rhyme or do not rhyme. 

-In the Story/Not In the Story- We will discuss characters from our stories. Then we will color and cut the animals and sort them into two categories; In the Story and Not In the Story

-Journal Writing-We will be writing in our journals. We will be writing about our favorite character from our stories about gingerbread. We will focus on the directionality of our writing (staring at the left and continuing to the right of the page) and continue our  practice turtle talking and listening for sounds in our words.  Remember, writing is a developmental skill and we are all working at our own pace and improving each week.

Creating Lists- We will be creating lists of who were the characters in each of our stories. We will discuss characters that were the same in the stories and characters that were different.

Handwriting/Letter Groups
-Handwriting Without Tears Program
-Visual Discrimination Puzzle of a Gingerbread- We will

Math Groups
-How many long are objects? We will use a gingerbread ruler to measure how long objects are. For example, a marker is 6 gingerbread long and a book is 8 gingerbread long. We will compare by using more, less, and equal vocabulary words.

-Gingerbread spinner tally game- We will spin a spinner than record each time we land on a color. We will continue until we have a set of 10 colors. Then we will see which color had the most, least or if any results were equal.

-Subsitizing Card Game- Children will take turns being a "teacher". They will show a card with an amount on it. Then the other players will show a card that shows the same amount but in a different ways. (For example, 4 fingers, 4 dots, number 4, 4 lines, etc).This will be done without using 1:1 correspondence to know how many.

-Gingerbread Counting- We will color and cut a variety of gingerbread men in sets. Then we will place the sets in sequential order. Then we will write the number for each set

Centers
Art Table- Painting with cinnamon, Gingerbread man painting
Block Area- blocks
Sensory Table- tinsel of gold and silver
Book Area- Exploring Books about gingerbread
Easel-Markers and paper
Writing Table- Writing paper/Playdough
Dramatic Play-Bakery Shop with Gingerbread Cookies
Math, Puzzles, and Manipulatives-puzzles
Rug- legos

Science/Social Studies/Math Circle Concepts
-Good Choices
-Take Away Story Telling (Taking bites of cookies)
-How animals move (run, fly, swim,.....)

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"

Songs, Word Plays, and Language
-Thumbs Up to rhyming and non-rhyming pairs
-Syllable Sound Off, Compound Boogies
-Our Good Morning Chant
-5 Little cookies in the bakery shop
-Songs for our musical

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.