Short Vowel Week

We have worked very hard to master the short vowel sounds and this week we spent our afternoons working on short vowel centers. They worked with 3 in a group and learned to work cooperatively with their classmates and played 7 different short vowel games. 

This center was a short vowel sort where they sorted pictures by their vowel sound then sound spelled each of the picture cards on a record sheet.

This center was called “Beat the Record”. They worked with each vowel sound and tried to build as many words as they could in the time given. One group came up with 36 words in 20 minutes!

 

At this center they got to pick different board games and raced around as they drew cards and  had to tell the vowel sound that was missing in the words.

Sound It Out Bingo was another center where they spun the spinner and it landed on one of the 5 short vowel sounds. They had to see if they had a space on their board that would make a word with that vowel sound and played to see which board could be filled first.

    

At this center they raced through the short vowel words. They would roll a die and move that many spaces and had to say each word as they raced by!

At this center they had to figure out the missing short vowel sound and match it up to the correct vowel sound and then spell them on their record sheet.

The last job we did to finish up our short vowel week was make a short vowel flip book. They put each of the vowels on the book and then cut out pictures and matched them up to the correct vowel sound and then sound spelled each of the pictures. They are so proud of their efforts. I am too! Next week we will begin our spelling tests with the short vowel a sound!

Pumpkin Week!

This week we worked on the short u sound and learned about the life cycle of a pumpkin. They made short u pumpkin books and added pictures and words that made the short u sound. They also made a pumpkin book that sequenced the life cycle of a pumpkin. All of our centers were “pumpkin” themed.

At one center they got to make Silly Pumpkin Stories using pumpkin faces to complete illustrations to go with sentences that used our sight words and they completed: The pumpkin _______ can _______.  The pumpkin _______ will _______.  The pumpkin _______ is ______.  These were a few examples:  The pumpkin bunny can hop.  The pumpkin girl will jump.  The pumpkin boy is hot. They had fun making these pictures and sharing their sentences.

At this center they worked with each of the short vowel sounds and used letter tiles to create 8 words for each short vowel.

Graphing is a skill we are working on in math. At this center they graphed different colors of pumpkins and then added sets.

At this center they got to play “Pumpkin Bingo”. They rolled 2 dice and wrote number sentences and covered their bingo board with the correct answer.

  

Our listening center was The Runaway Pumpkin.  They then got to play the game “Rotten Pumpkin” where they worked on numbers 1-100. 

Friday we finished up our week with a power point story called Pumpkin Farmer, Pumpkin Farmer, What Do You See? They made Pumpkin Farmer books with the story and did the illustrations to show the life cycle of a pumpkin. Then we had a fun filled afternoon of pumpkin art.

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Fire Safety Week

We had a busy week learning about Fire Safety and practicing with a surprise fire drill at school. We started our week making a list of things that the students knew about to be “fire safe”. We read the story Dot the Fire Dog and  made “Dot” with a fire safety book to attach to our art job of “Dot the Fire Dog”.

 

All of our centers this week were Fire Safety themed. They put Fire Dogs in order from least to greatest using numbers 1-50. At our listening center they listened to Clifford and the Fire House. They made a Clifford puppet with Stop, Drop, and Roll written on it to help them remember if their clothes catch on fire what to do.

Another center they did was Fire Dog Math. They rolled two dice and used black spots to add to the fire dogs to match the dice and then wrote number sentences using the number of dots on each dog.  They used fire safety words to put in ABC order as they went up to the top of a ladder.

 

They sorted pictures onto short vowel ladders and used the vowels of short a, e, i, and o to spell words. To finish up the week they wrote and illustrated about their fire escape plan. Some of our favorite books we read this week were Stop, Drop and Roll, Miss Mingo and the Fire Drill, and Arthur’s Fire Drill to help us understand all our fire safety rules and to learn the importance of having a fire escape plan in place.

  

More Octo-bear!

We finished up our introduction to Octo-bear with a Social Studies unit on needs and wants. We read the story Corduroy by Don Freeman and discussed the differences between a need and a want. The kids did a needs and wants sort to check for understanding and then we made a cute Corduroy art project.

 

We also worked on bear super sentences when we made a sentence wheel showing who, what, and where. They then put those elements in order to make a super sentence about bears. They worked hard on their neat writing and sentence writing with correct mechanics.

Welcome Octo-bear!

It was a fun Friday where we welcomed the month of “Octo-bear”!  The kids brought their bears and we did a whole day of Octo-bear things.  Our Math lesson was a lot of fun working on math combinations of 6, 7, 8, 9, and 10.  They got to use Teddy Grahams as their counters and show all the facts for each number.  They were very hard workers!

 

Here are their bear friends that they brought to school.  Next week we will do Octo-bear themed centers and several other bear activities.