Week of January 5-8, 2015

Week of January 5-8, 2015

Theme: Let's Investigate

Focus Question: How can I learn by observing?

Letter of the Week: Q

Dear Families,

I hope everyone had a restful and happy holiday season. 

This week, as we begin a unit titled "Let's Investigate," children will learn to think and act like detectives. This week's lessons will provide children with opportunities to learn about and use their senses. Children will use their senses of sight, hearing, touch and smell to gather information and answer questions. They will also be introduced to tools, such as scales and magnifying lenses, that help detectives gather information. The students will use their investigative skills to explore objects that sink and those that float.

Learning Together

• Place a variety of items, such as a marble, a cotton ball, a lemon, and a crayon, in a paper bag. Have your child use his or sense of touch an smell to identify the items without looking in the bag.
• Together, play games of "I Spy." Say clues such as "I spy something in this room. It is red and soft. What is it?" Take turns giving clues.

Activities

• Exploring rough and smooth objects using the sense of sight and touch. The students will use magnifying glasses to determine if they can tell whether an object is smooth or rough by looking at it and then testing their hypothesis by using their sense of touch.
• Using a variety of objects the students will make predictions about whether each object will sink or float. They will then test their prediction to see if their prediction was accurate. We will graph the results of objects that sink and those that float.
• The letter of the week is Q so we will be making a craft for the letter Q.
• The students will participate in some listen to reading activities using Tag Readers and word work activities using the IPads.
• In the afternoon the students will review the three ways to read a book: read the words, read the pictures and retell the story.  These are components of the Daily Five which is an approach to structuring literacy activities. The students have already learned these three ways and have practiced reading the pictures.  I will demonstrate read the words by reading a funny book called "The Book With No Pictures." 
• The afternoon class will also begin learning about read to self.  We will make some anchor charts that describe what reading to self looks like and doesn't look like.  We will do some demonstrations of both and then the students will begin choosing books for their book bins. Each student will have a book bin to keep in the classroom which contains books they have chosen.  During read to self time the students will be working on increasing their stamina. Most students during read to self time will be reading the pictures or retelling the story although a few will also be working on reading the words. 
• The first week back is also a time for getting reacquainted with the rules and routines of school.

The a.m. class would like to welcome a new friend to school this week, Claire S. 

Important upcoming dates:

• January 8-Show and Share letter Q
• January 19-No School-Martin Luther King Day