Home Reading

Our class is beginning our take-home reading program soon.  This book should be read nightly until your child feels successful in reading it.  Please make sure you make this a fun and positive experience for your child.  Remember, looking at pictures is part of the beginning reading experience.  

    Also, please remember that this is about your child enjoying reading and feeling successful and confidant.   This should take about 10 minutes each night.  Feel free to supplement these books with your own collection and/or the library.

    When you are ready for a new book, you should return the one you have in your child’s backpack and they will trade for another.  

If you have any questions about the reading program, please feel free to email me.

When you begin each book, here are a few things to try:

      Picture walk—Before reading the book, read the title with your child.  Look at the cover and the pictures throughout the book.  Ask your child what they notice and to make predictions and connections with the book.

      Go back to the beginning of the book and read the title together.

      Make sure your child is touching each word as they read.

If your child cannot read a word, here are some strategies:

      Ask your child about the word they said:  Does it look right?  Does it sound right? Does that word make sense?

      See if they are able to recognize sight words.   The sight words in your child’s books should be ones that they have/are learning.  

      See if they are able to recognize a pattern in the text.   Are the words rhymes?  Can they figure out the mystery word by looking for rhyming or pattern clues?

       

Can they recognize the sounds we’ve learned in class?  Focus on the beginning and ending sounds.

Zumba

We have had the AMAZING experience of learning Zumba this week and last.  40 minutes of dancing and they were all completely engaged throughout and exhausted by the end.  I could not be happier to have so many enthusiastic dancers in the room...especially when we get a chance to put the DAB aside and learn some new things.  Of course, the pictures don't do it any justice but we did take a few.

 

Visit to Loutet Farm

On Wednesday we had the chance to walk to Loutet Farm for a visit.  At this time of year there isn't much to see there but we did learn about what happens to seeds and growing vegetables over the Winter.  They were also able to plant a Magnolia seed to bring home!  The gardener's advice is to:

• please keep the newspaper pots at a sunny warm window. If you can find some tupperware containers to keep the pots in, I think that will be the least messy. The soil was very dry, so if you can water them to keep them moist, that will be ideal. I think it should be at least 2 weeks before you notice anything growing. 

We will be growing our own seeds in class after the break as well.  So much to look forward to in Spring including getting our own butterfly larvae, lots of outdoor learning, and fun with insects!

Here are some pictures that we captured at the Farm.