The things around us are all shapes and sizes. We have rectangle doors, square books, triangle sandwich halves, circle orange slices, hexagon Stop signs and more! This week, we focused on finding and describing shapes all around us. For example, a square has 4 corners and 4 sides that are all the same length. A rectangle also has 4 corners and 4 sides, but two of its sides are long and two are shorter.
We walked around our classroom and the neighborhood searching for the shape that Ms. Marianne called out and we came up with some fun examples! We read books called The Shape of Things by Janine Scott, Museum Shapes by The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and Mouse Shapes, by Ellen Stoll Walsh. After we read Mouse Shapes, in which the mice use shapes to create giant mice that will scare off the sneaky household cat, we used shapes cut in all sizes and colors to create pictures of our own! Our landscapes included houses, trucks, trees, clouds- even an airplane!! We were so creative!
We practiced our listening and shape describing skills by creating a shape that Ms. Marianne described for us, and then used our own thoughts to create from open ended questions like: "What shape could we create with 3 sticks?"
A fun new game this week was Musical Chairs, but if we didn't get into a chair when the music stopped, instead of getting "out", we'd have to close our eyes, choose a foam shape from a bag and tell the class what it was. We played until all of our shapes were out of the bag- then we played again because we loved it so much!
A fun new game this week was Musical Chairs, but if we didn't get into a chair when the music stopped, instead of getting "out", we'd have to close our eyes, choose a foam shape from a bag and tell the class what it was. We played until all of our shapes were out of the bag- then we played again because we loved it so much!
We also learned a new song (an extension of the ABC song, and sung to the same tune) that is helping us put together the name, sound, action and a word for each letter of the alphabet. We've been practicing every day to make sure we've got those letters and sounds down PAT! We can practice at home too! :) It goes like this:
a, /a/, alligator (arms like alligator jaws)
b, /b/, bear (one arm reaching into a honey pot and eating the honey)
c. /c/, cat (cup hand into a 'c' and clean side of face)
d, /d/, dig (use a pretend shovel to dig a hole)
e, /e/, elephant (make an arm into a trunk and swing it side to side)
f, /f/, fish (one hand on top of the other, thumbs out and the thumbs circle to make the fish 'swim')
g, /g/, gorilla (thump chest)
h, /h/, hot (breath out into hand in front of mouth using /h/ sound)
i, /i/, inchworm (index finger inching upward)
j, /j/, jump (make two fingers 'jump' on other hand)
k, /k/ kick (kick arm up, kick arm down- think the shape of the letter)
l, /l/, lizard (flick tongue in and out like a lizard)
m, /m/, mouse (rub tummy like something is tasty)
n, /n/, nose (wrinkle nose)
o, /o/, (we say all three sounds for this one instead of a word, so /oh/, /o/, /oo/)
p, /p/, popcorn (pop up and down like popcorn)
q, /q/, quail (crook index finger on forehead like a quail's feather)
r, /r/, raccoon (crook fingers of a hand to resemble an 'r' or a raccoon's paw)
s, /s/, snake (wriggle arms back and forth like a snake)
t, /t/, tambourine (use index fingers to tap the tambourine)
u, /u/, up (point up)
v, /v/, vampire (point to teeth)
w, /w/, water (pretend to drink from a cup)
x, /x/, xylophone (tap fingers together in an 'x')
y, /y/, yes (both arms up in a triumphant pose, say "YES!")
z, /z/, zipper (zip a zipper up and down)
Now that we're getting so good at our letters and sounds, some of us are moving on to using those sounds to make words. It's a slow process, but we're finding words that are simple to build and sound out, and we are realizing that we are readers! What a confidence boost to know that we can put what we know into action. You can practice with me at home to. Just give me a word to spell and have me sound it out by breaking it into individual sounds and then stating the letter that makes that sound. For example: cat. I'd say /c/- C; /a/-A; /t/-T...c-a-t...cat! You can also go the other direction by writing down a word and having me sound each letter out and slowly begin to put the sounds together faster and faster until I hear the word that I'm saying. This is the trickiest part. We know the letters and their sounds, but trying to go from segmented sounds to a whole word gets hard. It's easier for me to hear you sound it out and me say it in many cases, but eventually I should be trying on my own, without any help. Another way we can practice is by changing the first (or middle, or last as I get more confident) letter of a CVC (consonant-vowel-consonant) word like PAN to make a new word and having me tell you what word it makes. For example: PAN changes to VAN when I switch the P to a V; or PAN changes to PAD when I change the N to a D. All of these techniques will help me recognize that I am a reader already and that I can do this!
Next week we will begin our two week unit on Plants. So excited!
Love,
Your Child
and
Ms. Marianne
a, /a/, alligator (arms like alligator jaws)
b, /b/, bear (one arm reaching into a honey pot and eating the honey)
c. /c/, cat (cup hand into a 'c' and clean side of face)
d, /d/, dig (use a pretend shovel to dig a hole)
e, /e/, elephant (make an arm into a trunk and swing it side to side)
f, /f/, fish (one hand on top of the other, thumbs out and the thumbs circle to make the fish 'swim')
g, /g/, gorilla (thump chest)
h, /h/, hot (breath out into hand in front of mouth using /h/ sound)
i, /i/, inchworm (index finger inching upward)
j, /j/, jump (make two fingers 'jump' on other hand)
k, /k/ kick (kick arm up, kick arm down- think the shape of the letter)
l, /l/, lizard (flick tongue in and out like a lizard)
m, /m/, mouse (rub tummy like something is tasty)
n, /n/, nose (wrinkle nose)
o, /o/, (we say all three sounds for this one instead of a word, so /oh/, /o/, /oo/)
p, /p/, popcorn (pop up and down like popcorn)
q, /q/, quail (crook index finger on forehead like a quail's feather)
r, /r/, raccoon (crook fingers of a hand to resemble an 'r' or a raccoon's paw)
s, /s/, snake (wriggle arms back and forth like a snake)
t, /t/, tambourine (use index fingers to tap the tambourine)
u, /u/, up (point up)
v, /v/, vampire (point to teeth)
w, /w/, water (pretend to drink from a cup)
x, /x/, xylophone (tap fingers together in an 'x')
y, /y/, yes (both arms up in a triumphant pose, say "YES!")
z, /z/, zipper (zip a zipper up and down)
Next week we will begin our two week unit on Plants. So excited!
Love,
Your Child
and
Ms. Marianne
