On Monday we celebrated Peace Day with a school wide assembly.
First, our entire school made a human peace sign by standing on a giant peace sign that was painted on the field. Next, we gathered in the gym and representatives from each grade level talked about how we could bring peace to the world.

 This week in reading workshop we focused on what we can share with our partner during share time.  We discussed how they can talk about their favorite part in a story and tell why it is their favorite part, they can share something that is interesting or "That's cool" to teach their partner something.  They can share something that they learned from their book, something that makes them say, "I didn't know that!"  They can also share a connection that they have to the book, or a similar experience with, "That's happened to me."
The children have been practicing their reading stamina and are now able to read for 8-9 minutes independently! I am so proud of them! Independent reading is followed by followed by 4 minutes of share time.  They do their independent reading back-to-back with their partner so they don't distract each other, then they turn so that they are knee-to-knee for sharing.

 

The children did a great job staying focused during share time.

At the fine motor station the children had to use a hole punch to punch out black circles that would form the legs of their spiders.

In writing workshop, the children finalized their books and many had a chance to read their books to me so that I was able to write words underneath.  This was a great exercise because as they were reading over their own work, they were able to see things that they wanted to revise or change because it wasn't what they really wanted to say or they wanted to add more words.  We worked on visualizing an idea before beginning to write and many children started a new piece in their writer's notebook.  After only 1 1/2 months of school, it is so exciting to see the growth that is taking place.  Listening to them stretching out words or using our 'useful words' in their writing is so great to watch.

In math this week we worked on comparing and ordering numbers 0-5.  The children used 1:1 correspondence to compare two groups to determine whether one group has more, fewer, or as many as another group.  We practiced ordering numbers 0-5 in sequence, and learned about ordinal numbers through fifth.