Monday, October 13, 2008

We began another fun (but short) week in Room 145 today.

After choice time, we had our afternooon meeting as usual. After our meeting, we read a short math book (Ten Black Dots, by Donald Crews) to set up our math time. Then we spent some time learning about the number 5 - and the combinations of numbers that add up to five. The kids put together 2 colors of linker cubes to make the number 5. This skill is an important one, as it leads not only to a better understanding of how numbers work, but also it directly corresponds to addition skills.

After math, we had Writer's Workshop. Today I taught a mini-lesson about what writer's do when they don't feel like they have a new story to tell -- they look back at old stories that they have written, and either re-work or add to them, or get a fresh idea from a previous story. Then, once again, we WROTE. The kids are really doing a nice job getting their ideas onto paper.

We also met a new friend of Mr. High Hat's today - Penny Put. the story and the sequencing cards are in your child's backpack today. Finally, we did some more work on counting by 10s, and played a fun game with the number chart. I turn several of the numbers around so that the card is blank, and then the kids have to figure out which number needs to be 'fixed'. At the end of the day, we finished up with a couple of pages from Esio Trot.