January

Wow, it's hard to believe it's January and we're already halfway through the month! December and January have flown by. We finished the year with the Gingerbread Play, and have been settling back into our routines as we return from the long winter break.
January is a time of checking in, doing some assessing, and thinking about where we are headed for the rest of the year. We did a little rearranging in the daily schedule to allow for a little more play at the end of the day as the children were showing that they needed that.
In literacy children are working hard to build their sight word knowledge, and use that combined with their letter sound knowledge to read and write pattern books. We do daily "word play" practicing phonological awareness skills, and are connecting those skills to print and how that helps us read and write. This month we will be focusing some time on handwriting, practicing individual letter formation, CVC words, and spatial awareness for writing sentences.
In math we are spending lots of time diving deeper into teen numbers. Many students are learning to understand teen numbers as "ten and some more". We are ordering numbers 1-20, playing number line games with them, and have added some fun games to our math mixer to work on this concept. Ask your child about "Popcorn" "Avoid the Beavers" and "Teens Bingo".
We had a wonderful field trip to Shelburne farms, learning about forest animals and tracking, that connected so nicely to the learning we've been doing on our Forest Thursday. We have had to be a little flexible with our Thursdays as the weather has changed so much over the weeks. Last week students participated in stations indoors and then had the choice to play in or out for free play. It was neat to see who preferred to be where!