Ask Me About Thursday, January 2, 2020

We had a great second day of 2020 today!  We passed The Talking Fish and shared and listened to stories about our Winter Break.  Then, the students wrote about their break.  They concentrated on using a capital letter at the beginning of their sentences, spaces between words, and ending their sentence with punctuation.  They worked to take their time to listen for the sounds in the words to get down the letters that went with the sounds.  Many of the children are using the writing mats that have the alphabet and sounds of the letters to help.
In math, we began to compare weights.  Today we used human scales and some of the children help The Talking Fish in one hand, and found an item from around the room that was either lighter or heavier than the fish.  They tipped their arms to show what it would like if they were a balance scale.  We also thought about what we could carry in our backpack for a long walk and what we could not carry for a long walk.  We shared our ideas with a partner and talked about why.  Ask me to show you the paper I made that shows what I could carry and what I would not want to carry for a long walk.  

In reading, we began a new unit about why people tell stories.  We thought about the kinds of pieces writers write to begin to answer this question.  We thought about how writers tell stories that could happen or that we need to use our imagination for, and stories that teach a lesson.  We also thought about stories about different places and times.  We reviewed the words characters and settings.  
We also learned about making inferences.  We studied a picture and the title of a short piece.  The story was called Pat's Amazing Pet.  We used the picture, what we know about animals, and the title to make an inference or a good guess about what made Pat's pet amazing.  Ask me to tell you what made Pat's pet amazing.  
We also talked about quotation marks.  In the story of Pat's Amazing Pet, we saw quotation marks.  We know these marks tells us what the character says or writes.  The words inside the set of marks is exactly what the character or writer said or wrote.
We read the classic story called Make Way for Ducklings, by Robert McCloskey.  This story is set in Boston, Massachusetts so it is part of our Read the U.S.A. collection. Your child will bring home the postcard tomorrow for this state and a couple others we have read.  We practiced telling the beginning of the story or how the story gets started, the middle of the story or what happens as they work through a problem or situation, and the ending of the story, or how it all works out.  Ask me to tell you the beginning, middle and end of the story of Make Way for Ducklings.
​
I hope you had a wonderful Winter Break!  I hope 2020 brings you happiness, good health and lots of time spent with your family!
​~Miss Wolfe