This week was all about apples! We read books about apples and legends about Johnny Appleseed. We made some great apple themed art projects as well! 

We have been working with a new writing curriculum that is closely linked with great books and has a strong social skills component. We do some drawings and write about them (sounding out words, thinking about beginning and ending sounds, adding details to our pictures) in our special writing notebooks.  Then, we share our writing on the big screen! 

We went to the library with Mrs. Schafer, our media specialist. We listened to a story, learned how to take care of library books, and then checked out a book of our own to read in our classroom! 

We work on our play several times a week. We are learning how to say our lines loudly and with our partners and we're practicing where to stand so the audience can see us. We hope that someone from each child's family will be able to join us on Thursday, October 26 at 2:00 in our classroom - it is sure to be a fun event! 

We have been practicing a new coping skill - "ignoring". We can use ignoring when someone is acting silly, trying to distract us or bothering us with faces or words. We learned that ignoring means we turn away or stop looking at the person and we stop saying words to them. Sometimes we also need to use "move away" or "get adult help" - two other good coping skills. We always prompt students to use coping skills, and we always reward their efforts. 

We also use "get help" when we are stuck on our work, feel upset or confused or when we don't know what to do...but we practice raising our hand with a quiet mouth so that we don't disturb our classmates.