Mrs.O'Bryan's

 Our home page features updates about our weekly adventures in the JK class!

I hope everyone stayed warm this week. We were outside when we could be but mostly stuck inside this week. We made the most of it though and enjoyed some movement breaks in the classroom. At least the weather went along with our winter theme! We watched some videos about winter https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EG3LVTFQUA4; and read several books about winter as well.

We started assessments this week so we enjoyed a little bit more independent play time in the classroom in order for Mrs. O'Bryan to work one on one with students being assessed. We still managed to get a lot done this week.  We put magnet letters on our magnet boards to show the corresponding sound Mrs. O'Bryan had asked for. Some friends focused more on individual letter sounds while others started working on simple CVC words by putting the sounds in order on their white board and blending them together to discover the word made (cat, hat, mat...). We looked at the letter Q and number 9 in our HWT's book. We used erasers to practice AB, AABB, ABC and AABBCC patterns. I am very impressed with how well we are doing patterns! This calss as a whole seems to get that concept pretty well. We also started measuring. We used our 10 unit cube measuring stick to measure different classroom items to see 'how many cubes tall' they were. We also practiced our teen numbers in several ways. Utilizing flash cards, videos and writing them on our blackboards, and lastly putting that many number dots around our polar bears to make igloo's for them. 

We have brought back our fine motor bins in the morning and I am very pleased with how many of them come in and are able to work quietly on their box with their partner. We are getting number and letter practice in these boxes as well. Many of them are also practicing writing their last names at the morning box. Overall, they have helped the morning to go smoothly and give us more independent, academic practice. 

Mrs. Ella and Mrs. Katie both taught religion lessons this week. Mrs. Ella taught on unity and each student drew a picture demonstrating what unity meant to them. Mrs. Katie taught about how each snowflake is unique and how we, intern, are fearfully, wonderfully (and uniquely) made by God as well! We did very good during Mass on Wednesday, but struggled in our religion lesson this week with Mrs. Katie which is not typical for them. We talked about the importance of talking when it is our turn to talk and listening when its our turn to listen and we apologized to Mrs. Katie for not being respectful to her during her lesson. I think we are still just finding our rhythm after coming back from break and should settle in more next week. 

We will do one more week with our snow theme and then we will head into shapes as we get closer to Valentines day. We will continue looking at our teen letters next week as well and review measuring. We will also start our show and tell next week. I have sent a schedule as well as details in the email contianing this newsletter. If you have any questions, don't hesitate to reach out. We will also have our compliment party (details again in email) on Tuesday when we return. Due to the MLK holiday, there is no school on Monday. I hope everyone has a great weekend and as always, please don't hesitate to reachout with any questions or concerns!