Apple Picking!

It was a chilly and wet day at Allenholm Farm but we had a great day!

Sorry for the lack of posts.  I was away last Thursday and Friday at a District Writing Committee Conference.  Yesterday and today have been busy!  We have been talking a lot about the weather and how apples grow.  Today I read the book Apples, Apples, Apples by Nancy Elizabeth Warren and we talked about what we expect to see at the apple orchard tomorrow.  We also read our first poem of the year: Five Little Apples

Five Little Apples

Way up high in the apple tree, 

Five little apples smiled at me. 

I shook that tree as hard as I could.

And down came five apples, 

Mmmmm they were good!

Each week we will read a poem of the week.  During Reader's Workshop one literacy station will be illustrating the poem of the week.  We will read the poem several times a day over this week so that students are able to "read" the poem independently and then can draw a picture that matches the words.

Today we also learned the sound /h/.  The songs that go with all of the sounds from the Jolly Phonics program are available on you tube. 

It was a weird weather day today.  We did get outside for morning recess.  We did lots of letter and number writing and read the book Sally Goes to the Vet.  

Rainy Day Paintings

This morning we learned how to properly grip a pencil.  We learned how to pinch a pencil with our thumb and pointer finger and rest the middle finger underneath.  We started with small golf pencils as they are smaller and lighter for small hands. 

This afternoon I read the book When Rain Falls by Melissa Stewart and we talked about what animals do when it rains.  We also looked at the book from the viewpoint of artists and then used the crayon resist technique (white crayon and watercolor over) to make rainy day paintings. 

We are weather watchers!

On Friday I opened up our Art Easel and students enjoyed painting on the easel.

Today we started Literacy Stations during Reader's Workshop.  Students are placed in groups and for now will have one station they move to each day.  Today students used mini black boards to practice letters we have learned so far: s, a, t, i, p, n, made letters with play dough, read books from our class library and used iPads.  Students will go to one station a day and will get to all of them by the end of the week.  A new iPad app we are using this year is the Jolly Phonics Letter Sounds App.  It is an app you need to pay for but I think that it is worth the price!  It moves through the letter sounds as we are learning them and students practice forming the letter, choosing the sound and then blending words.  

This afternoon we also started Artist Writer's Workshop combining writing and our first science unit on weather.  We watched a Mystery Science video were we learned that when we talk about weather we want to think about whether it is sunny or cloudy, how we dress if it's hot, warm, cool or cold, if it is dry, rainy or snowy or if it is windy or not.  A lot to consider as weather watchers!  I read the book A Letter to Amy and students experimented with water color paints to paint a storm sky. 

Thursdays always seems so busy!  Students have Music in the morning and PE in the afternoon.  During Math today we worked on different strategies for counting.  I arranged some teddy bears in a circle and accidently counted around the circle twice!  Students helped me out by thinking of ways to arrange the teddy bears so that I would remember to stop once all were counted.  Some ideas were to move them so there is a gap in the circle so I'll remember to stop.  We also noticed that there was only one red teddy bear so if I started with the red and remembered to stop counting before I touched it again we would have the correct amount.  I read another book from our new favorite series, Sally's Snow Adventure, and students had some more time to explore with letters with wooden pieces, gems and play dough. 

Happy Wednesday

This morning at morning meeting we played a new game "People to People" and it was a big hit!  Students chose a partner and then I called out different combinations like hand to hand or back to back.  The partners do the move until I called out People to People and then they switch partners. 

In Math we worked on writing the numbers 1-4.  This was tricky for some students but we talked about how when we practice things that are tricky it makes our brain stronger!  Students also played a roll and dot number game and used play dough to make the number on their mat.

I read another Sally book Sally Goes to the Farm and two second grade students visited to read Yo! Yes?