It’s our first week back after Christmas vacation. Everyone had a great story to share about what they did while they were on vacation. Since it is still the Christmas season, we continued our celebration of the Christmas season by rereading the Christmas story and celebrating Epiphany- the coming of the Three Kings. It is always amazing how long it takes for the Kings to travel all that way. In reading, we worked on comparing and contrasting stories. We started by reading the “original” story The Three Little Pigs, where the wolf eats the pigs, and the “new” version, where the pigs move on to their siblings' house. When we were done, we created a list of things that were the same in each story and things that were different. Then each day we read a different version (The Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig, The Three Little Javelinas, and The Three Little Hawaiian Pigs and the Magic Shark). After each story, we listed the ways it was the same as the original and the ways it was different. We found that many of the stories had a lot of things in common except for the setting or the place the story takes place. Our big writing project this week was to create the characters and setting from the story and to use the props to retell the story. We ended the week by retelling the story of the three little pigs to our 5th grade buddies using the puppets and setting we created.
Monday:
No School- Christmas Break
Tuesday:
Merry Christmas! Today we talked about how it is still Christmas. We celebrate the joy of the Christmas season through the Baptism of Jesus (Sunday, Jan. 9th). We each shared something we received for Christmas and something we did during Christmas break.
In Reading, we reviewed all of our letters and letter sounds. Then we were introduced to our newest letter and letter sound Ee. After watching a letter video and identifying some words that started with the /e/, we competed our letter sorting worksheet. Next, we listened to two stories titled The Three Little Pigs. Our first story was the “original” Three Little Pigs. In our story, the pigs each built a house. The big bad wolf blew down down the first two houses and ate the pigs. The third pig built a strong house and they were able to capture the wolf. In the second story, the pigs each built a house. The wolf blew down the houses of the first two pigs, but they got away. Then together the three pigs captured the wolf. As we read the second story, we talked about things that were the same and things that were different. Then we completed a sequencing worksheet. We had to cut out all of the pieces and glue them in order. Since there were so many pieces, we had to make sure the second row went from left to right just like when you read a book.
In math, we working on counting by tens. We started with a short video that we counted along with. We count by tens almost everyday during calendar, so we are getting pretty good at it. Then Ms. Torborg challenged us to figure out how many fingers that are in the whole classroom. We decided that since each person has 10 fingers, we could just count by tens. We had 150 fingers in our room. Then we completed a puzzle picture. After cutting apart the strips, we had to arrange the numbers in order by counting by tens.
In religion, we colored a picture of St. Elizabeth Ann Seton in our saint books. St. Elizabeth Ann Seton founded the first American Catholic School and was the first person born in America to become a saint. Her feast day is today, January 4th.
Wednesday:
In reading, we reviewed all of our sight words. Then we were introduced to 2 new sight words, her & him. After using our words in a sentence, we read through our new emergent reader, The Three Little Pigs. First we read the story together as a class. Then we read it quietly to ourself. Finally, we completed our two sight word worksheets for the words him & her. We also listened to the story, The Three Little Javelinas. A Javelina is a southwestern cousin of the pig. Our story was similar to our first story The Three Little Pigs only it was set in the dessert. When we were done with the story, we compared it to the original story. We learned a new word- similar. It means that it is just like it but not exactly the same. There were many things in the stories that were similar. In the first book they built a house out of straw. In the second book, they built a house out of tumbleweeds. We decided that straw and tumbleweeds are similar. We also found all the ways they were the different and the same. Our project for the day was to create the setting from the original story of the three little pigs. We started by creating three different houses. We cut out the outline of three houses and glued them on a big piece of paper. To create the straw house, we glued yellow string pieces on a house outline. To create the stick house, we glued popsicle sticks on a house outline. To create the brick house, we just draw bricks across the house outline.
In math, we played Top-It with number cards. Top-It is just like the card game war. Since we have played Top-It before, we just have to review the directions. The biggest difference today was we used number cards instead of dot cards.
In religion, we listened to the story, Follow the Star. It was all about the journey of the Wise Men through the eyes of a small camel.
Thursday:
Happy Epiphany! Today we celebrated the wise men visiting Jesus. We revisited the story of Jesus’s birth including the journey of Mary and Joseph. We added the wise men to our manger scene. Then we talked about the journey the wise men made. In honor of Epiphany and the new year, Father Jeff blessed our classroom with a special marking above the door.
During reading, we reviewed our letters and letter sounds. Then we watched our letter e video, create a list of words that began with both the short and long e sounds, and completed our letter Ee worksheet. We also listened to the story, The Three Little Hawaiian Pigs and the Magic Shark. We compared and contrasted the story with the original one. We found the biggest difference in the The Three Little Hawaiian Pigs and the Magic Shark was the setting. This story took place in Hawaii, so there were several new words we didn’t know. The way the story ended was also different from the other stories we read. Our project today was to create the stick puppets for the story of the three little pigs. We colored and cut out the three pigs and the wolf. Then we taped them on popsicle sticks. We also we added some background designs like a blue sky and grass, to our paper the our houses on it for our setting.
In math, we were introduced to the hundreds chart. Our chart had all of the numbers from 1 to 100. First, we counted all of the numbers. Then Ms. Torborg would call out different things we had to do like with your red crayon color all of the numbers that start with an 8 or with your blue crayon color all of the numbers that end in 3 or with your yellow crayon color all of the numbers that you say when you count by tens. We noticed that the numbers sequenced. Then we worked on locating specific numbers on the chart like 93 or 48. We started by locating the row of the first digit. Then we would slide over until we could locate the second digit.
Friday:
In reading, we listened to the story of the Three Little Wolves and the Big Bad Pig and then we created a list of different building materials we could use to make a house. In this story, the wolves worked together to build different houses. Each house was stronger than the first. The big bad pig would find a way to destroy each of the houses. That is until they build a fragile house of flowers. The pig decided to change and be their friend. Throughout the story, we made predictions about what might happen next. After we read the story, we compared it to our first story (the original Three Little Pigs.) We identified things that the same and things that were different.
We also worked on retelling the story of the Three Little Pigs. This week we created puppet characters and the setting. We used our props to help tell our story. We practiced a couple of times this morning that then after library our 5th grade buddies joins us. We retold them the story of the Three Little Pigs using our puppets and the setting we created. If we had time, we read them our decodable book, The Three Little Pigs.
In the afternoon, we split up into 2 groups. One group went to the computer room to play Teach Your Monster to Read on the computers. While the other group worked on a reading worksheet sorting pictures into characters and setting and working one on one with Ms. Torborg as she checked some of our number skills. After 25 minutes, we switched.