First, the students and I would like to welcome Ms. Conley to our class. The students and I are thrilled that she will be filling in for me while I am on maternity leave taking care of "Baby Lilly." The students spent some time with Ms. Conley on Thursday and today. The students have accepted Ms. Conley into our classroom as if she has been a permanent fixture.
In addition to spending time with Ms. Conley, the students and I worked on several concepts. In math, the students and I worked on coin recognition, counting the "teen" numbers, and the term, "digit." To practice our coin recognition skills, the students and I played a game that included a cube labeled with the pictures representing the front and back of a penny, nickel, and dime. When the students rolled a certain picture, they had to place that coin in their "piggy bank" (four sections of an egg carton labeled with a Q, D, N, and P). We also talked about the term digit and that numbers are made using digits. Last, we did several activities that allowed us to work with the "teen" numbers. First, we talked about the characteristics of the "teen" numbers such as they all start with a one, they have two digits, and they all have the word "teen" in their names. We played counting games that involved the "teen" numbers. Each child was given a number card with a "teen" number on it. I called a number, and that student had to do an activity the specified amount of times based on the number card he/she had. For example, if a student had the number card, "14" he/she would have to jump up and down fourteen times while the rest of the class counted. We also talked about making the "teen" numbers by starting with ten and adding the needed number to make the "teen" number. For example, if we wanted to make the number 15, we would start with ten and add five more. We worked with partners to make the "teen" numbers and made them on number lines.
For reading and writing, we continued practicing skills pertaining to syllables. The students used a two-way sort sheet to sort two- and three-syllable words into the appropriate column. We also continued journaling about each school day, and focused on hearing the initial sounds in words. For example, when I wrote the word, "math" in our journal entry I asked the students, "what letter does math start with?" as I said the word slowly. We also talked about starting each letter with a capital letter and ending our sentences with periods. As we read our journal entry, we practiced our concepts of print. This includes starting on the left and reading to the right as we point to each word. We are also making a class big book with a page dedicated to each student. Each day a student is interviewed so we can learn his/her age, favorite color, and favorite food. When completing this activity, we also focus on hearing initial sounds in words, punctuation, and concepts of print. Through these activities the students are learning to spell some common words, such as number words and color words.
