We had another successful school field trip to Burnham Orchards! The students truly enjoyed picking apples and pumpkins, watching the apple cider machines hard at work, and walking through the packing and delivery process. Their interest in apples and fall inspired our math and literacy activities. During meeting, we read several informational texts about apples, leaves, and autumn. The students enjoyed sharing their knowledge and learning new vocabulary.

During literacy stations, several children are working on their 2D and 3D shapes. We have been naming shapes, counting the sides, matching shapes, sorting shapes and playing shape memory! To continue practicing, have your child name the shape of objects around your house. What shape is your dinner plate? What about your bed?

During Writer’s Workshop, we are using many games to practice identifying letters, both upper- and lower-case, as well as practicing our letter sounds and letter formations. By continuing to learn and master these pre-writing skills, the children will be able to gain the knowledge and confidence to begin journaling and writing independently. When your child points out a sign they recognize (e.g. Giant Eagle, Target, McDonald’s) ask them what letter the word starts with. What sound does it make? Identifying beginning sounds is an important concept which we are practicing every day!

Patterns, patterns, patterns! Our class has loved working with patterns. We built patterns with our unifix cube towers, we stamped patterns on sentence strips, we made patterns with fall pictures, and we found patterns in our classroom! Now that they children have demonstrated a strong understanding of patterns, we are moving on to one-to-one correspondence. We are making sets of matching objects, putting items in pairs, and giving one item to every child. At home, ask your child to help you set the table. Use phrases such as, “One fork for each plate, one plate for each fork.” Next week, we will discuss uneven sets using terms such as bigger, smaller, more, equal, less, same, and fewer.

This week, we began our first chapter book – Flat Stanley’s African Safari Adventure!  We are reading one chapter at the end of each day.  The children love to review what happened and look forward to reading the next chapter.  Ask your child about it!

On Friday, October 19, our class will join the Kindergarten and First grade for a special presentation about police officers! We will have real police officers talk to us about their jobs and how they help keep us safe.