Even though February was a short month with snow days and Mid-Winter break, the students had a lot of fun and were able to learn a lot through our small group lessons and everyday activities.
Everyday the students continue to get more confident in writing their names and other words around the room all on their own. For a fun activity each child wrote each letter of their name on a “snowball” and then put the name puzzle together to create a name snowman! They also were able to read their classmates names when they were hung up around the room. They also discussed which names had the same amount of letters and which names had the least or most letters. Another way we focused on names was to have a “name hunt” around the room! Their small name tags with only their first names were placed in random places all around the room. They then had to go find each name and color it in on their paper. It was a great way to practice recognizing other people’s names and the students had so much fun!
We’ve also been continuing our focus on both 2-dimensional shapes and starting to learn about some 3-dimensional shapes. They’ve been working hard on learning the attributes of shapes and how to create new shapes from other shapes (two squares create a rectangle, two trapezoids create a hexagon, etc) and how to cut up shapes to create a new shape (cut a rectangle on a diagonal to create two triangles, cut off the tips/triangles of a star to create a pentagon, etc).
To celebrate friendship and our family members, each student created a Valentine’s day card for someone they love. It was a great writing experience as the activity held meaning for each child and they were very excited to make it for that person. We also used candy hearts of different colors to do a fun math lesson. Each child practiced their counting, sorting, and graphing skills while doing this activity. Your child can do some fun sorting and graphing activities at home as well. They can sort out different types of toys by color or size, they can sort laundry or something similar. Pretty much anything can be sorted and an easy graph/chart can be made so they can draw out how many of each item they had. They then can “read” the graph to see what the results were.
This past week we worked on measurement skills and did a fun science experiment with ice cubes. To help the students understand the concept of measuring something, we used our small unifix cubes and items from around the room. We discussed how when you go to the doctor, you get measured in inches and feet. We looked at a ruler to show what the unit of an inch and a foot looks like. They then learned that they were going to measure using a different unit – a cube. They then chose items from around the room (books, puzzles, blocks, cars, dinosaurs, etc) and then lined up the cubes from one end to the other to measure their items. They then got to practice their counting and figuring out how many units their item was.
As for our ice cube experiment, the students had been talking a lot about how the snow and ice has been melting on and off for awhile. We then talked about what they thought might help make the ice melt faster. They mentioned the heat from the sun outside, the heat from inside our homes/classrooms, and hot water. Each child then got two bowls with an ice cube in each and they could decide on two items that they think would melt their ice cubes the fastest. They could choose from cold water, salt, sand, flour, or use nothing. As the students experimented most thought that the salt and sand would be the fastest. A lot of students chose flour as well. As they observed their ice cubes throughout the day, they found that the students who chose cold water and salt had cubes that melted the fastest. Flour and sand were the slowest. We then discussed why flour and sand melted the ice the slowest. It was an easy experiment that the students were very engaged in and allowed them to learn and use almost all parts of the scientific process! You can repeat similar experiments at home and I’m sure they would love it.
As we move into March we have a lot of fun and exciting activities planned! On Wednesday it is “Wacky Wednesday”. I will have another post tomorrow explaining about Wacky Wednesday and the weeks ahead!
