Ask Me About Tuesday, September 13, 2016

Today we learned about mistakes.  We started our day by thinking about this quote and discussing whether we agreed or disagreed with it:

A little more than half the class agreed immediately that mistakes are good.  We had a good discussion of what a mistake is and is not.  We know that doing something that is not right on purpose is not a mistake.  Ask me why mistakes are good.  
We read a book by Todd Parr called It's Okay to Make Mistakes.  This book gives examples of mistakes and what happens when you make a mistake.  Todd Parr books have few words, so we studied the illustrations to find out more about what was happening with the mistakes.
Today we practiced writing the word I and it.  We also worked with handwriting and practiced upper and lower case Ii.  
We read a story called Regina's Big Mistake, by Marissa Moss.  This book is a great book for children, and adults too, who get upset and want to start over when they make a mistake.  Regina is in Art and needs to draw a picture of a jungle or rainforest.  She is very nervous and is afraid she doesn't know how to draw a picture like that.  She begins to draw but makes a mistake and throws away her paper.  Her teacher tells her she cannot just throw away paper and start over when she makes a mistake, but instead needs to turn her mistake into something in the paper.  Ask me to tell you what happens with Regina and her picture.  We brainstormed what we would see if we were in the jungle or rainforest and made our own jungle pictures today.  Be sure to ask me to tell you about my picture.
In Writing Workshop, we have begun a mini unit of study about writing lists.  Today we made favorites lists.  We wrote a title for our list and then wrote a word or two on lines, or used unlined paper, and added items to our list.  Some children drew a quick sketch and wrote the beginning sound of the item, others heard more sounds and wrote them down.  The important thing is that they tried to get down at least a sound for each item on their list.  I introduced using the MCPS alphabet we have hanging in our room and on cards at tables.  Students who are still learning letter names and sounds can use this tool to help them in matching sounds to letters. You can find a copy of the MCPS alphabet on the Writing Workshop page I have added to our website.
We collected data today that shows the preferences of the class for weather.  We overwhelmingly chose snowy days as our favorites.  Ask me to tell you about our favorite weather data.

In Science, we looked for clues in paintings to tell us about the weather.  Here are a couple of the paintings we looked at together, and a few more we will be studying tomorrow..  Ask me to tell you what noticed in the paintings to help us know about the weather.  (Be prepared to hear about the birds.  We seemed stuck on the birds!!!)  

Each day if we  get packed up a few minutes early, we watch a clip from the Science Channel show How It's Made.  Today we watched the clip that shows how Lego are made.  The children really enjoyed this one since they love Legos so much! Here's the clip!  Enjoy!

Just a quick reminder that Back to School Night is tomorrow night, Wednesday, September 14, from 7:00 - 8:35.  Please go to the All Purpose room for a brief introduction from Mrs. Oglesby and the PTA.  Childcare is available in the gym from Bar-T.  Please do not bring your children to the classroom.  I hope to see you tomorrow night!

Have a nice evening!
Miss Wolfe