Penguin Fun!

We have had a great time learning about penguins this week!  For some reason, those cute little guys just capture the kids' attention, and we were really able to focus on learning facts about where penguins live, what they eat and what their bodies look like.  The K-Kids drew diagrams of the penguin body and labeled the different body parts.  They also created their own construction paper penguins, and those creative beauties are hanging on our snow covered windows!  The K-Kids were attentive as we read non-fiction books about penguins and helped create an "All About Penguins" learning chart.  Be sure to ask your child why polar bears and penguins would never meet in the wild!  They are experts now :)

We continued our focus on addition this week and used the word "sum" to describe the final answer.  The first focus was on understanding how to use manipulatives to complete an addition problem.  After mastery of  using manipulatives, the kids learned to read a math problem and use the manipulatives to complete the problem.  The last step was for the K-Kids to write the entire number sentence themselves after hearing a story problem.  The math homework will continue to reinforce addition and writing number sentences.  I also introduced the calculator this week.  The kids had a lot of fun learning how to turn it on and to use it for simple addition.  When given free choice time with the calculators, it was interesting to see how many of the kids quickly turned the calculator into a cell phone! :)

During Writer's Workshop this week, the K-Kids created fictional three-page stories.  They worked on writing a cohesive story and using invented spelling and WOW words that they have learned.  With very little assistance, many of the kids wrote creative, funny, and quite lengthy stories!  I am excited to share these stories with you during February conferences.

Enjoy the snowy weekend!