Word Walls and Paper Clocks

We began our official Word Wall today. Each week about five or six words are added to our wall that we want children to learn and know in the same way they understand and relate to computer games! We'll play games with them each week, review them orally, and refer to them often during our Writing Workshop time. Today six words appeared including a, all, at, an, can and that. By years end our wall will contain 100 words that children can say and spell easily. They are included on the word rings and are indicated with a blue dot. They are also listed on the website so practice them often.
It was also a great day to continue our learning about clocks by making some paper ones of our own. After we cut and pasted our together we used a song by Hap Palmer called Paper Clocks to sing with and move our clock hands to the hour. Mrs. Leinbach also has a linked a math game on our website that reviews time to the hour as well. We shared it with the group and they caught on very quickly.
Despite the rain we all enjoyed our 35th day of the year quite nicely...and now the weekend awaits. Have a wonderful weekend and we'll be in touch...

How Time Flies...

Time is such a telling thing. As each day passes all things change to some degree or another. Today in our classroom we marked the passing of time in several ways. Hannah celebrated her 7th birthday today! Each morning that someone has a special day we have a celebration where we sing songs and read a favorite book or poem that the child enjoys. We set out a candle to represent the sun and the birthday children circles the candle once for each year. As they walk parents and/or teachers share something special from each year. We also have a special birthday cake Mr. Dahler found this summer. He fills it with something special and hides it in the room for the birthday child to find.
So Happy 7th year Hannah...and here's to many more!

We also looked at time by introducing how we track it using an analog clock. We examined our Judy clock (a special clock for teaching time that teachers enjoy) and gave each child a small replica to add to their math toolkit. Often we will have children take out their clocks and use them to display times that we ask them to show.

We've also been examining our state a bit more this week and have written our postcard note that will be sent to schools all across the country. Our postcard has a picture of Pilot Mountain and Bri discovered that it stands 2,490 feet tall. We'll soon post a giant map of the United States That will keep track of all the states from which we receive cards.

Word Work and Word Rings

During our Reading Workshop time one of the things we do is work with words which we "lovingly" refer to as word work. It's the time of the day when children work with manipulatives, examine word parts, and get to better understand how words work. This weekend while I was out and about I picked up some Play-Doh and we spent a part of our morning getting our hands busy and creating words. At only about fifty cents a container you get to hear kids say some incredible things like, "This is so cool!" or "Can we do this again!"

We also passed out our Word Ring cards today so you'll find them in your child's bookbag tonight. Make sure you go over the words often and if you're out and about a tub of Play-Doh might work for you like it did for us.