Ezra Jack Keats author study

This week we enjoyed reading books by Ezra Jack Keats. We loved these stories that are about children who are a lot like us...we could relate to the things the children did in the stories and we could understand some of the problems they had. We worked hard on re-telling the stories too, which is an important reading concept. We read The Snowy Day and created snowy scenes with Peter in his red jacket...

We enjoyed listening to A Letter to Amy  and created artwork to go with the thunderstorm scene where Peter was trying to mail his letter...

We read a book called Hi, Cat! and created some cats of our own...

We wrote about our favorite characters in our journals...

Another Ezra Jack Keats book that we enjoyed was called Whistle for Willie about a dog named Willie. In this story, Peter wanted to learn how to whistle - he had to really work to learn how. 

We introduced a new coping skill called "Square Breathing". This is just like "deep breathing" except that it uses a visual to help children slow their breathing down. This slower breathing helps us slow our hearts down when we have strong emotions, and it gives our brains time to think and choose a calmer option. 

We had a new student join us this week, and another new student will join us next week for a total of 14! It is exciting to see how older student welcome and help newer students - many have become great role models for them. 

We completed our week by going into the computer lab and taking the iReady assessment. 

Next week we will begin our huge fairy tale unit! 

Arctic Animals

We learned all about Arctic animals this week by conducting a science experiment. We tested out ice cold water with our bare hands...

We retested the icy water again, but this time we wore a "blubber glove". This was actually some plastic bags filled with Crisco, or blubber. We could really feel the difference - the blubber kept our hands warm in the icy water!

We watched some short videos about walrus and polar bears, and used that information to write in our journals and create some art work. We also drew a diagram of the earth and located the Arctic and Antarctica. We know that penguins live in Antarctica, and polar bears live in the Arctic...they would never meet!     

We finished the week by creating a winter bird house project. 

Next week we will read books by the author Ezra Jack Keats! 

Snowmen and Penguins

We had a short week last week, but we are back into the swing of the New Year. We've been reading snow stories and creating snowmen and women. 

We've also been learning about penguins and had fun creating some big and small penguins. We wrote about penguins in our journals too. 

In our social skills lessons we have discussed how to look for "clues" to how someone feels by looking at their faces and listening to their words. Most of our students recognize when someone is in the yellow or red zone, and they realize they don't feel comfortable around them. Using coping skills helps us move back into the green zone - we know we feel better and people feel more comfortable around us when we are in the green zone. It is also how we show that we are ready to learn. Your children feel really proud when they are able to name their feeling or zone, use a coping skill, and move on with a good day at school. 

We read two favorite Jan Brett books, "The Mitten" and "The Hat". Both are great stories for re-telling, a skill we work on a lot in our room. We wrote about an animal that could be in our mitten. 

Reminders: No School on Monday, Jan. 15

                  Early 1/2 day on Thursday, Jan 18 for Conferences