Ohio Pig Farm Virtual Field Trip

I hope everyone had a wonderful thanksgiving holiday! It was nice to be with family and turn our brains off a bit from school. But, I could tell many of them missed their friends!

We are having a "bucket war" with change at Forest View. The money goes to buy gifts for project Christmas. I talked to the class about offering to do some extra chores at home for some change to bring in for the bucket. So, don't be afraid to ask them to vacuum or clear the table and maybe some quarters for our class bucket would be a great incentive!

Literacy:

Our new unit introduces students to several farm animals as well as to crops that people grow on farms. Students will also learn about how farmers raise and care for animals. Since learning about Plants, students will make the connection that animals need food, water and space to live and grow just like plants do. Students will understand the importance of farms as a source of food. With each animal we are learning about, students are also writing a non-fiction book about those animals to take home and share with you. Each time we read a story, they choose one fact that they learned to add to their book-with real pictures and everything!

We kicked off our Farm Unit with a visit virtually to an Ohio Pig Farm. What a great experience. We learned all about pigs and how this farm takes care of the baby pigs until they are ready to go to the finishing farm. Next week we are going to learn about a few more animals: cows, chickens and sheep.

Phonics: This week we spent time digging into reading phrases. Students would see phrases like

a dog dug, pet pig, dog and cat and are learning that they can read the individual words and then read them in phrases. We also were introduced to the tricky words "the" and "a" as well as the sight word "and".

Thank you for continuing to work at home on the home games and Candy Words and being connected with our classroom.

Math: This week we continued working on measurement. We have discussed length and using words longer and shorter, height using words taller and shorter, we put items in order from tallest to shortest and shortest to longest. We also talked about weight and using words more and less.

Another important skill we are working on includes making combos of 5. This means if students are given a number like 3, they provide how many more to get 5 which is 2. 3 and 2 are partners to make 5. This is the beginning of addition, building our number sense. Next week we will work on how many more to make 10.

You may be hearing about our Kindness Countdown. During this holiday season, as we count down the days until Christmas, we are focusing on "giving" in our class. Every day we talk about how we can show kindness to others and brighten their day. Each day we will open a bag to see the kindness task inside. When we do something kind for someone else, it makes us feel good too. Christmas isn't just about receiving, but can be about thinking about others and giving. Just little life lessons that might stick! Enjoy asking your child each day what our kindness task was and enjoy a fun conversation about what we did!

Congratulations to our STAR student this week!

Luke can be seen following directions, sitting attentively, enjoying building or creating with friends, and working hard! We enjoy Luke in our room so much! Congrats Luke!