Thursday, Sept. 22

This morning, the Cow Group began their day with a phonics lesson and spelling review. We we over yesterday's assignments, and the special sounds that they had learned previously. We also moved on to learn the rest of our yellow chart. Again, we will need the special sounds for our phonics lessons and at home assignments.  For spelling, the class went outside for a relaxed review session. We talked about the special sounds in each one of the spelling words and played a review game where the children could hop like frogs as they spelled the words!

In the Guinea Group, the class had a practice test to see which words they needed to study and focus on at home. They did a really great job with this list. It's a tough one! We talked about each of the ones that they missed, made changes, and made a note to make sure to study them at home. Next, they continued to work on their activity for the poem, The Duel. Once the Chicken Group gets into the groove of in class and at-home assignments, we will add poetry recitation for them, as well!

 

 

In hand writing, Mr. Jim worked with each child individually, focusing on their unique needs. I've noticed in other classes that some of the children are starting their letters at the bottom instead of the top. This will make it tricky to increase speed later on and will make cursive more difficult than it needs to be. In order to help us tackle this in class, we would love for parents to watch for children starting the letters at the bottom and make corrections when needed. It would be better to tackle this habit early than be frustrated with slower writing when frantically taking notes in high school and college!

The vocabulary list review went really well today! The kids were given a few minutes to look over the words before the review. They really know this list inside and out!

In history, Mr. Jim took the class on a visual tour through the Roman empire. They asked so many relevant questions, and I was thoroughly impressed with their retention of the material!  The kids will be reviewing all of chapter 1 at home on Friday and Monday, and will be playing a review game over the material on Tuesday.

After lunch, the class broke up into the Cow and Horse groups. The Cow Group reviewed the definitions of the different parts of speech that they have learned so far.  They then learned the difference between complete sentences & fragments. We reviewed that sentences must start with a capital letter and end with a punctuation mark. They also learned the four different types of sentences. This year, we will be using the terms statement, command, question, and exclamation.  The students played a game on the four types of sentences at the end of class.  I read a sentence and they used the whiteboards to show their whiteboard to show which type of sentence it was.  In Mr. Jim's class, the Cows listened to the story Thidwick, the Bighearted Moose. They will be writing their own stories to bring to class on Tuesday! Mr. Jim is working to increase enthusiasm for writing, and provide motivation by giving them an outlet to share their stories with peers! 

The Horse Group reviewed yesterday's at -home lesson in their workbook. We made any corrections that needed to be made, discussing them thoroughly. It is more important for us to master the material then to simply get a grade on it! The class reviewed the pronoun list, and they were given a motivation to memorize it... I will be giving a prize to anyone who can memorize it before the end of next week! We briefly discussed the different types of verbs in class today, and we will be working more on verbs in upcoming days.

In Mr. Jim's class, the Horse Group also listened to a read-aloud. This group already possesses a great enthusiasm for writing, and Mr. Jim and I cannot wait to hear what they have to share on Tuesday!  

After our math independent study time, we had enrichment time! Today's enrichment time was spent playing some mental math games!  Although working out problems the long way is a very important skill, I believe it is also important to have simple math facts memorized to the point that they require no thought when calculating complex problems in the future. This helps students to avoid getting bogged down in the arithmetic of the problem, focusing more on the new skill or process being taught.  

I hope everyone has a great day of at home lessons and a fabulous weekend! See you Tuesday!