Pete the Cat: I Love My White Shoes |
So, to the heart of the matter: things that really worked this week. Over the summer, I discovered the Pete the Cat books (thanks to my good friend, Lauren, who is also on my team). We read I Love My White Shoes, Rocking In My School Shoes, and His Four Groovy Buttons. My kids sat SO wonderfully for all three of these stories. They were actively listening, they were engaged, and they were able to answer comprehension questions about them (and this is a feat, because I have some children who don't speak any English). I made this paper to go along with the White Shoes book, and my students did such a great job that their papers are now hanging on my Thinking Board.
Pete the Cat Worksheet
We did some shape collages that worked really well. My family helped me cut out many different circles, triangles, squares and rectangles out of a variety of scrapbooking paper. Then the children had to find one particular shape each day and glue examples of it inside one large corresponding shape.
One thing that was challenging for me this year but did work nicely was the opening of math time. In previous years I had made calendar CD's that focused on the day of the week, the month, spelling the days of the week, etc. Since time has been taken out of the core curriculum, I felt that I really needed to change my focus for the beginning of math. So we very briefly work with the calendar, simply focusing on today's date and singing "Today, Yesterday and Tomorrow" by Jack Hartmann. Then we say the numbers up to that date (if it's August 24th, we count up to 24). Next we do a number line activity (I purchased a number line from Lakeshore). At this point, I'm just asking various students to find particular numbers. Later in the year we'll jump ahead 2, go back 1, etc. There's a fabulous song by Dr. Jean called "Country Countdown 1-20" that I use right after the number line to have the children bend their legs to each number as we count forwards to and backwards from 20.
I'd love to hear what things worked for you this week! Please write me a comment below.
Your students think that I am HILARIOUS.
ReplyDeleteThat's becauser you ARE hilarious! In a good way. :) And my kids LOVE singing and dancing. Tanya indicated she loves the piano.
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