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!