Mrs. Garrabrant's Classroom: Leafs, Pumpkins, M Sound & More!

Wow, we had such a busy week this week!! We had so many fun learning experiences and so much to share with you all. We finished learning the rest of the alphabet and began focusing on the letter M sound along with focusing on jobs and different work that people do. The students worked hard in Literacy Lab this week and in writing they wrote about what they were going to be for Halloween as well as made thank you cards for bus drivers for National School Bus Safety Week. We read the story 'Leaf Man', went on a leaf hunt and made our own leaf creations. We also explored pumpkins, cut one open, then estimated and counted the seeds. We did a directed drawing of a pumpkin in order to decorate our bulletin board in the hallway and students completed self-evaluations for learning and behavior. We enjoyed a fun halloween snack activity with our Preschool Reading Buddies, earned our purple book, finished our orange and purple mosaics, and more.

Take a look below for more details!

Here is our focus wall for our Journeys program for this week.

As always we worked hard in Literacy Lab this week and participated in many fun learning activities. We worked on finishing learning letters Y & Z. We read books and colored pictures that begin with each letter sound.

We also worked on reading books about jobs such as "Selling Things". Then for a comprehension page students had to circle the picture from the story and draw their favorite part.

Students also worked on making a name pumpkin. They cut it into strips and glued them back onto a piece of black construction paper.

Students also worked on matching upper and lowercase letters.

And circling certain letters on alphabet stories.

Mrs. Ball practiced guided reading and finding sight words in books.

Of course students also worked hard on passing their reading iReady lessons!

Fun Friday Activities:

Students read fall stories and drew their favorite part.

Miss Reed read a green color book with them, they colored the word green throughout their books and then colored the pictures.

Worked together to complete an ABC puzzle.

Students explored the alphabet on the learning website Starfall.

This week was National Bus Safety Week so students made thank you notes for our bus drivers and aides. Mrs. Schieman delivered them on Friday to thank them for helping to keep us safe!

Here are just a few examples. They all did such a great job and they all turned out beautifully!

Students also wrote about what they were going to be for Halloween. These went into your child's portfolio so they will be sharing those with you at conferences!

We worked hard in our Reader's Notebook on the letters Y & Z as well as nouns for animals.

We also worked on our sight word 'and' as well as the letter M sound.

We read another letter M book full of pictures beginning with the 'M' sound.

We made a list of things that begin with M, the students drew them and we put some of them onto a card for our word wall.

It turned out awesome!

During workstations, students worked with me on the number 9 & the color green.

Mrs. Boxley worked with the students one day when she came in.

Students worked hard on passing their math iReady lessons during workstations as well.

We read the story 'Leaf Man' and then went on a leaf hunt to collect our own leafs.

The students enjoyed finding many leaves of various colors and shapes!

The students used their leaves to make their own leaf creations. They all did such a great job! I wasn't able to fit these in their portfolios so I took a picture of them before sending them home. I will put the picture in their portfolios.

We spent some time exploring pumpkins. We documented how the outside felt, then we cut it open and documented how the insides felt!

The students sorted the seeds from the pulp.

Then we counted out the seeds. We put them in rows of 10 and then counted by 10's until we counted 100. The tray we used was perfect because we could fit 100 seeds on each side. It took us two days to lay them on the tray and count them all out but we did it!

We had 539 seeds in our pumpkin!

We also did a directed drawing of a pumpkin to hang up on our hallway bulletin board. I demonstrated step by step on the board and had the students follow along to create their pumpkin. Students were able to decorate however they wanted for the outside part.

I love how they followed directions but they look different!

We also worked on a circle paper. We practiced our cutting and tracing skills as well as practiced recognizing a circle.

Students completed a learning & behavior self-evaluation for themselves. These will go in their portfolios and will be shared with you during conferences!

We did a fun Halloween snack sorting activity with our Preschool Reading Buddies. We used the Cheetos Bag of Bones and students had to sort the four different types of bones and then they could enjoy eating them as well as drinking some juice. They enjoyed this activity!

Students earned their purple color book.

We also finished the orange & purple color mosaics this week.

We sang lots of Halloween songs this week like this one for 'Head, Shoulders, Knees and Toes".

We set a 2 week iReady goal of 90 lessons passed and after the first week, the class has passed 48 lessons. The students voted and if they meet their goal they would like to have a popcorn party!