Today, after Afternoon Work Time and Afternoon Meeting, we had reading.

Today we worked on another reading strategy for the kids to use as they come across words that they don't know or are 'tricky.' I taught a mini-lesson about "chunking and chewing," which means that the kids can take words apart and look for familiar parts or letter combinations, and then re-assemble them to make the word that they are trying to read. The kids then went and found a comfy spot in the room to read and practice their strategies (the ones that we have talked about thus far are pointing to words as they read, using picture clues, skipping over a word and coming back to it, and now chunking and chewing). The "chewing" part comes in as the kids "chew" on the parts in their minds. They all did really well, and at the end of Reader's Workshop they all shared the strategies that they used as they were reading today. Ask your child what they did!

After reading, we headed up to the music room for our time there with Mr. Hofmann. When we got back down to the room, we had math class. We are beginning a unit on geometry, and the kids worked on using the pattern blocks (they look like this) to make animal shapes from a template, and then create their own animal. As you can imagine, their imaginations went wild!

After math, we had Choice Time - the typewriter was out, and the Take-Apart Center was open too.

After all that, it was time to head home.