Catching up.......

Addition practice with some centers:

We've been practicing some reading centers in the past couple of weeks.  We've reached the ability to Read to Self for 16 minutes!  The kids have filled their book boxes with between 5-10 books that they chose themselves because of their interest, knowledge, comprehension and their own purpose for reading.  They are LOVING the time they get to read all by themselves!

Another center the kids have really enjoyed is Listen to Reading.  We've posted a link to our blog with a whole symbaloo of online books for kids.  The kids get to choose books to listen to online, or they can listen to one of the many books on tape that we have.  

Another center that has quickly become a favorite is Working with Words.  The kids are using Spelling City (see the link on our blog) to get their Word Journeys (spelling/phonics) words for the week.  They should still bring home a list of words on Monday and prepare for their online test at the end of the week.  Throughout the week there are a variety of ways that they can practice their words.  We have a light bright, shaving cream, lemon juice, links, letter tiles, wikki stix, pipe cleaners, letter beads, stamps, geoboards, and white boards for the kids to practice with.  They can also practice sentences or games with their words on their Spelling City feature.  Here's a little taste of our centers....

Katie, the BV County Naturalist, came to our classroom to talk with us about animals.  The kids were able to show off their knowledge of animal groups.  We talked about mammals, reptiles, birds, amphibians, insects, and fish.  She even brought in some samples of reptiles, mammals, and a bird!  

We have talked about all of the animal groups learned the attributes of each group.  We discussed animal body coverings too.  We got a chance to look at some real fur, feathers, scales, skin, and shells.  We also recorded some of our observations and asked questions about them afterwards.

Fish scales

We enjoyed making a door decoration for the residents at the NGSC.  We were able to go to the NGSC on Thursday for a visit and to decorate Christmas cookies with the residents.  More pictures of that will come soon!