"Peek at the Weeks" February 9-13 and February 16-30

Math Workshop

We started our new unit in math this week! We focused on number stories with teen totals.  We reviewed the words unknown partner and unknown total. 

We also began looking at strategies to help us solve teen subtraction probelms. 

One way we learned is by counting on from the partner to the total. 

Another startegy we explored was breaking apart the partner to make 10. For example, if you have 14-6 = __, children would break the 6 into 4 and 2. Then they would take 4 away from 14 to get 10. Then take 2 away from 10 to get 8. This strategy sounds tricky, but after some practice it really helps children solve these probelms mentally!

Reader's Workshop

We started our second tricky word unit last week!  In this unit, we will be adding a lot of strategies for tackling tricky words now that we are stronger readers and are reading harder books!

We are learning that readers must ask themselves 3 important questions when solving a tricky word:

Does it look right?

Does it sound right?

Does it make sense?

As we learn new strategies, we are putting them into one of these three categories. 

We are also building our own personal strategy charts to keep in our book bins! Each time we learn a strategy, we add it to our chart!

Toward the end of last week we learned how partners can 'coach' each other through tricky words! When a partner gets stuck on a word, their partner can suggest a strategy to try!

Our goal is to be independent when tackling tricky words while monitoring and self correcting our attempts. So far we are off to a great start!

Word Work 

We wrapped up our study on long and short vowels. We spent time reviewing all the vowel sounds!

We also learned the rest of our word wall words:

Before

Going

Man

I'm

Because

Our

Mother

We practiced our vowels and word wall words in centers this week:

Building word families (long and short vowels)

4 in a Row (review of long/short U)

Mixed Up Sentences (word wall words)

Spelling City (word wall words) 

What a fun two weeks!

It has been a very cold couple of weeks, and our classroom gets very, very cold inside! Please make sure your child is dressed warmly each day or brings an extra sweater/sweatshirt!  Thanks :)