Week of December 1, 2014

Reading:  We finished up our unit on Our Neighborhood at Workcommunity by reading a story about Mr. Kang's grocery store.  The kids enjoyed discussing what types of jobs Mr. Kang must do to take care of his store.  We also got the LeapFrog globe out and looked at where Korea is in Asia.  This week we also read a story about firefighters! 
Next week? We're starting a unit all about weather!


Math:  We have begun our unit on time.  First graders are expected to learn how to tell time to the hour and the half hour. During this past week I pre-assessed each student to see what they know about telling time.  I found that most of our class understands how to tell time to the hour, but we are still working on telling time to the half hour.  
     We began using our STACKS guided math rotations during this week.  So far I've found that I like the small groups, but I think I may go away from having "set in stone" centers for math and instead give myself more freedom so that I can have them all doing games if we need or only have two centers when needed.  
     During the next week we will begin a unit on surveys and reading graphs.  Each student will ask a question to conduct their very own survey.  

Look what was outside our window!

Our 4th and 5th grade chorus got to sing at a local Christmas tree lighting and yours truly was able to accompany them.  : ) 

Christmas time is here...

Guess who is visiting our classroom from the North Pole? It's Garland, Santa's scout elf.  She's visiting us until Christmastime comes and she has to return to help out Santa.  Watch out! Garland flies back home each night to report to Santa who's been good and who's been bad.  And you never know what mischief will ensue when Garland's around! Here are a couple of things we've found in our classroom this week:  

Thoughts for the week: