Life cycle of a frog

 We have had lots of fun in Life Science learning about animal structures, survival needs, baby animals and parents, and life cycles. The kids did a great job drawing their own life cycles and writing an animal research report. We all love hearing each other's writing being read aloud on the daily Meets! Next week we conclude our Life Science standards by classifying animals as either mammals, reptiles, amphibians, insects, birds or fish. Next we will delve into Earth and Space standards as we learn about the sun, moon, and stars.

Animal Habitats and survival needs

In phonics we have focused on the spelling patterns of /ew/ as in new, chew, stew, few, and /ight/ as in light, sight, fight, and bright. We make and read words with the patterns, use them in a Guess the Word game, and set /ight/ words to motion to get a little exercise (my husband thought I was bringing the house down with that one!) 

New spelling patterns

 Sorting words by long or short vowels was also a focus in Google classroom and Meets this week. One clue is that if there is only one vowel (bus), the vowel is usually short (we, me, be, he, are still long vowels though due to their being no consonant following the vowel). Most words with 2 vowels (seed, make, goat) can be sorted as long vowels- the first vowel says its own letter name sound and the 2nd is silent). When encountering an unknown word, these clues can help!

Short vs. long vowels

We began a new standard in Social Studies this week- learning about the symbols of the USA. During our Meets we read about the Statue of Liberty, The Liberty Bell, and the Flag. Next week we will continue to learn about other symbols.

Be sure to check our Epic site because

50 stars for 50 states

I assign many of the books we read in 
Google Meets so that anyone who misses a Meet can still read or listen to the books. There are other books and videos also assigned covering 
fiction stories at their level and math concepts.

Speaking of math, we have spent a lot of time working with
coin identification, coin value, and coin counting. Next week we will count mixed coins. Again there are several books and videos on our Epic site to review coins and to practice counting by 5s so we can count nickels.

Finally we have begun a new reading genre in literature- fairy tales! We read The Frog Prince in a meet and Jack and the Beanstalk today. Features and elements of a fairy tale include usually beginning with 'Once Upon A Time' or 'Long Ago' and ending with 'Happily Ever After'. Other included features are magic, special numbers, royalty, a wicked character, and magical creatures such as dragons, unicorns, giants, and trolls. 

Let's compare fairy tales!

Last weekend Ivy had a birthday- we sang to her the day before and wished her a very happy special day! Despite the rainy days this week, the weekend looks like it will turn around and warm up. That will be a great chance to get outside!

Once again I want to express my appreciation for all the help the families are providing for their kids. Being so young, there is no way they could do this without you! You make all the difference in the world- thank you!

Mrs. Dagley