Short and Sweet

I wasn't the best at documenting this week, but the girls were busy! In math the girls were introduced to two knew activities. Early in the week the girls played Grab and Count. The girls began by grabbing a handful of counters (bears and cats). After sorting their counters (by size, color or animal) the then counted up and labeled each group. In this activity the girls were working on sorting, adding 2-4 groups, stretching out their words and one-to-one counting. Soon the girls will begin to make two grabs, work with larger numbers and label with more challenging words.

A.L. Sort by animal

S.W. Sort by color

Today we began solving story problems as a group. The girls used a variety of strategies to solve simple Join (result unknown) and Part-Part-Whole addition problems. Below are a two videos that show a few of the strategies that were used. Solving problems as a group allow the girls to learn from each other, as well as to teach one another. As the girls continue to solve story problems they will develop and explore different strategies, eventually moving towards using fact-families and mental-math.

IMG 5940 from Lisa Dutton on Vimeo.

IMG 5941 from Lisa Dutton on Vimeo.

Word Study and Writer's Workshop:
This week the girls began working on stretching out their words. The girls used sound-buckets to work on words with the short a and long a sounds. The focus on this activity was making sure that all sounds were represented as the girls stretched them out. Soon the girls will begin working in small groups to focus on different aspect of spelling that are specific to their needs.

The girls continued to work on their stories during Writer's Workshop. During Writer's Workshop the girls range from drawing pictures to tell a story to writing 6 pages! The focus in Writer's Workshop is for each girl to work independently and focus on her own 'next step'. We are currently modeling how Writer's Workshop is run and soon we will begin writing our own personal small moment stories.


Science:
During Reader's Workshop the girls looked through all of our fall harvest books and had a discussion about what makes a book fiction or non-fiction.

IMG 5851 from Lisa Dutton on Vimeo.
During Science and Integrated Learning, we read a few of our pumpkin books and the girls wrote down what they wonder about pumpkins. In the next few weeks we will find out how long it takes a pumpkin to get moldy after it is carved, how many seeds are in each pumpkin, why the vines of a pumpkin are so twisty and how long it takes a pumpkin to turn from green to orange! And those are just the ones I can remember! Oh boy!

Regardless of who wins tonight... The girls were giving the Giants some love.