Here is a recap of day 4 and 5….

Day 4

We read our Big Book out loud together and then used sentence strips to sequence the details of the story:

I then had students come to the front of the room and hold the strips up so we could read them.  We then wrote numbers on them in the correct order of their sequence.

We also did the Cut Up Sentences activity from the Building Blocks books.  The sentences this week were very unique and many were thoughtful sentences completed after we read several books about pumpkins.

We were able to use our balance scales today (and yesterday!!).  Here are some pictures of us doing that:

While some children worked with the balance scales, I pulled several smaller groups of children over with me and worked on shape matching:

Here are the new Literacy Work Station cards I made:

This is the sequencing activity we did with the pumpkin life cycle. See day 3’s post for more info…

This is the activity that will go into the Big Book Work Station with Pumpkin, Pumpkin.  I wrote the Guess the Covered words on an index card and put several post-it-strips on the card.  The children will find these words, cover them and with their partner, try to use clues to Guess the Covered Word.

Day 5

We used our Predictable Chart to make a class book…

It is true that these are the MOST loved books in our Library Work Station!

Stuff–

This next week, we will be learning about farms.  I didn’t do a closure lesson to tie up our pumpkins theme, because we will come back to it after this week.  We will go on our study trip to the pumpkin patch and have more knowledge to add to our theme.

I ordered Debbie Diller’s new book Spaces and Places and I will get it sometime this week!! I can’t wait! 🙂

We will start our composting theme along with the farm.  Our PTO purchased a large composting tumbler bin for our nature center and we volunteered to be the first class to get it going.  I had already received bins from my grant on DonorsChoose.org, so we will start that and talk about how redworms are  Nature’s Farmers! 🙂

I am also working on making name boxes for each child in the classroom. I’ve decided so that I don’t overwhelm myself and them, I will make one each day they are the Special Helper.  That way, we make one box a day, and add them slowly to the Name Work Station.  I’ve also decided that for now the Name Work Station and the Handwriting Station will be independent of each other, but could mesh into one Station in the second semester–this too would be a great way to save space! 🙂

I also recorded my students singing our ABC Sound Song, Days of the Week, Months of the Year, counting, Shape and Color songs and in between typing these words, am burning them on a CD for each child in my room to take home and practice.  This could be a Work Station as well–put a CD player, some head phones, charts of each of these songs and call it Calendar Work Station or Song Work Station.  The children who needed a review of these could sit and work on that and hear it as many times as needed–Hmmmm, I might have to try to find some room to set this up!

See you Monday down on the Farm!

Kristen 🙂