In our reading series this week, we have been talking about fantasy and things in stories that are real and make believe. Our story this week was Pouch, but I wasn't crazy about it and wanted my kids to understand fantasy a little bit better, so I pulled out a lesson from last year. Yesterday, we read the classic Little Red Riding Hood. We talked about the parts of the story that were real and the parts that were make believe. This story really helped because there are some far fetched things that happen (people popping out of a wolf's stomach??).

Then, we sorted pictures as to whether they were real or make believe. I *tried* to make a cute Red Riding Hood to attach to our papers, but she didn't quite come out right. However, the kids loved her and that's all the counts, right?

Today we read Little Red Cowboy Hat and compared the story to the classic version. The kids loved it!

You can get the Little Red Riding Hood activities here {for free!}

We also made a little anchor chart to help us remember what fantasy means. Each child drew something that is fantasy, and we hung it on our chart that will remain in our reading area.

Our reading series also has us learning all about nouns right now. To start, we made a chart and I let the kids tell me all the people, places, and things they could think of.

Today, we sorted pictures into people, places, or things. {You can grab this here for free as well}

We also did a little activity from Nicole over at Rowdy in Room 300 that the kids loved! I forgot to take a picture of ours, but you can click here to get  to her activity.

Next week we'll still be working on nouns as well as apples, so I can't wait to use this idea and freebie from Alisha over at The Bubbly Blonde!

That's it for now...how's your week going?

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Vickie

We have finally gotten in the swing of things in our classroom and have gotten in some pretty good routines. Last week, we focused on Goldilocks and the Three Bears and used it to help us learn all about the number 3 also. Forgive my pictures {and lack of some}...my school camera finally bit the dust so I didn't catch very many :(

We read the traditional story Tuesday then on Wednesday read Believe Me, Goldilocks Rocks, which is written from Baby Bear's point of view. The kids loved it and did really well comparing the two stories.

We also sequenced the things Goldilocks tried in the story.

We really got into the story during math! We did our usual rainbow tracing the big number 3, gluing on the ten frame, etc. then used the three bears to help us decompose the number. The kids loved it and I love that so many are already using the words equal, plus, and equation!

The kids loved acting out the story and having different amounts of bears "in the house" to see what our equation would be

Remember - we are doing this whole group but by doing it with every number every week, by the time we get to 10, they are pros!!

This was an activity my friend Deeanna made where the kids had to count on to make a group of 3 by gluing bears

Keeping with our three bears theme, we worked with groups of bears (Teddy Grahams) and beds (graham crackers) to practice more/less/equal groups. They loved this (especially when we ate them later!)

We also worked on triangles this week and I love that my kids are already using the term vertice like they've known it forever! We ate Doritos to practice biting the vertices of a triangle then made our triangle men that held the attributes of a triangle.

We did lots of other fun activities that you can find in my friend Deeanna's Three Bears pack {click the picture below}

Next week, we're starting small groups (PTL testing is pretty much done!), working on number 4 {with Pete the Cat!} and squares, learning about character, and working with our 5 senses. What is your class working on this week?

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Vickie

We are off to a great start this week! We are finally settled into some good routines and guided reading groups and workshops are going so well! Here's what we've been up to:

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Vickie

We are having so much fun reading different versions of The Three Little Pigs this week! There are so many activities you can do in reading and math with these stories and times like these are when I'm soooo grateful we aren't tied down to a language arts or math curriculum! Here's a little of what we've been doing:

We sequenced the houses from the story as a group

Then, the kiddos sequenced the houses independently

We drew/wrote about what we would build a house out of and made a cute pig craft

Close up of our pig

We've been super busy getting into our first "real" week of workshops and guided reading groups and I have to say I am VERY impressed with this group. They have done so well with working quietly and learning that you only interrupt Mrs. Plant "If you are bleeding or throwing up!" :) Here are some workshops we're doing this week:

Letter Sorting - Freebie here

Piggy Letters: Pulling an uppercase letter and coloring matching lowercase

Practicing letter formation with playdo

Letter Hunt  - Find a letter and trace...click here for recording page

Roll A Letter: Freebie here

My Friends: Clipping names of friends then writing...click here for recording sheet (Graphics from Scrappin Doodles)

All of the 3 Little Pigs activities can be found in my new mini-pack (click the pic for more info):

Also, to see some of the math lessons we've done this week, check out my friend Deeanna's blog here.

Hope you all are having a great week!

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Vickie

We have been working super hard this week on the number 3 and activities to go along with Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Here's what we've been up to:

We learned about characters and made our anchor chart that will hang in our room throughout the year. We also made a Baby Bear (and practiced our sight word 'a') to help us remember what a character is. 

We also worked more with character when we compared and contrasted Goldilocks in two different versions of the story. Since we're not up to writing a lot yet (and we can't read), I copied things that happened in the stories on different colored paper to help the kids know what we were gluing. It worked out really well.

 

We practiced position words using Baby Bear and we also sorted chairs, beds, and porridge bowls according to which bear they belonged to, which the kids did really well with. These activities came from Deeanna's pack that you can see here.

 We also used teddy grahams and graham crackers to practice more and less - the kids loved this activity!

Here are some of the other things we did to practice the number three:

 

We are starting guided reading groups Monday, so I have a ton to do before then. Hopefully I'll be back this weekend to share our literacy centers for next week. 

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Vickie