La Lectura

This week we read two books that talk about friendship and how important it is to make friends. “Ginger” (Ginger the cat) and “En busca de amigos” ( Looking for friends). In order to focus student’s attention and help them in their development of reading comprehension, they were asked questions which they had to answer at the end of the book.  It was a very fun way that kept them paying attention while the book was read, and everyone wanted to answer the questions!

We did a small review of words that indicate measures: Largo (long) mas largo (longer) alto (tall) mas alto (taller) corto (short) bajo, foot, inch, yard.

We continued learning new words to expand their vocabulary so they will be able to make sentences in Spanish. This week the words of the day were: Y(and), a (to).

This week we reviewed all the initial sounds of the alphabet and began with the process of blending. Blending makes up the second  component of the program Estrellita. This activity covers the syllables and the blending of those syllables to form words, sentences and short stories. We started the blending with the letter “A” (ma, pa, sa, la, etc.)

Practice in reading is critical to building fluency; learning to read is like learning to play a musical instrument, the more you practice, the better you get. For beginning readers, tracking the words with their index finger helps them focus on what they are reading and helps keep them on task, for this I told the children that this finger is called “el dedo mágico” (the magic finger) because it helps them to read. They should use it to point to words as they read them. To that end and make it more fun we gave them a plastic finger with a long fingernail, it was a very motivating way for them to have fun during reading time. For this activity, we read a book that focuses on the letter a: Papá, mamá y Ana. (Dad, Mom and Ana). They took turns using the magic finger to read in front of their classmates.

The fall craft of the week was a fun candy corn paper people, the kids loved making it!

Las matemáticas

The numbers of the week were 34-38 learning stroke, quantity and if it is even or odd. We did a fun activity with crocodiles to know which number is greater than (mayor que), less than (menor que) or equal (igual).

We continued with the learning of the ones (unidades) and tens (decenas), for which we did different activities with illustrated cards and lego blocks. These activities allowed us to introduce children to sums, for which they performed different  exercises with dominoes, fingers and block. Some of these math activities coming with a fall theme.  This week we have a new activity to learn counting in multiples of 10.

Science

This week we reviewed what we have learned so far and took our farm assessment. We did several activities centering around the farm, including a farm counting book and a barn writing activity.

Our weekly objectives were to:

• describe the farmers job
• explain why farms are important
• review what we have learned about farms and farm animals

History & Geography

This week in we continued to learn about the Great Plains Native American Sioux tribe.  The class finished their buffalo hide drawings and made  parfleche, which they read about in one of our stories this week.

Our weekly objectives were to:
• identify the environment which the Sioux lived
• identify the Sioux as a nomadic tribe
• describe the food, clothing, and shelter of the Sioux

English Sight Words of the Week

brown, ten, three, five, six, seven, eight, nine