Newsletter for September 1st-5th, 2008

We started off the month of September by learning all about Monarch Butterflies. We started our our theme by guessing what was in the Mystery Box. We played 20 questions and I was only able to give “yes” and “no” answers to the questions, which helped us be problem solvers by analyzing our answers and responses. Once we guessed that I had a Monarch Butterfly puppet, we read a Big Book called: A Butterfly is Born by Melvin Berger. It is the story of the life cycle of a Monarch Butterfly through pictures and simple text. It is available from the IMCPL libraries. Through a grant I wrote last year, we are fortunate to have a little copy of this book for each student to use while they are at school. We first read just the Big Book, pointing to the words as we read. Then, on Wednesday, I gave each of the children a smaller copy and we read them together, again pointing to the words. Thursday, we read the book again, but this time, we told the story in our own words. The children were great at this!
The children are VERY interested in what we can do to help the Monarch Butterflies, so we have talked about possibly collecting money to send to an organization in Mexico that would plant more trees for the Monarchs to winter in. We have also discussed planting more milkweed plants in the Spring, so that the Monarchs will have a place to lay their eggs. Stay tuned for our ideas!
We also started and completed another predictable chart. This one is called, “A Butterfly...”. The children each finished the sentence, and we will again made the sentences into a class book. Thursday, we practiced this by writing several of the sentences on sentence strips and cut them apart. We mixed them up and several students held the words for us. We then talked about what parts of the sentence went where. Through the process of switching the students around, we got them back in order.
Our Literacy Stations are going very well! The children have the process of rotating from station to station each day down very well. I have introduced several new items to the stations, including “Wikki Sticks” (sticky-ish candle wicks used for underlining words and letters), words to find cards to go with our Big Books, and highlighter tape (a Big Hit!). The children highlight important words in the story with this removable tape. I have also added several new games and puzzles to our ABC Work Station, and our Puzzles and Games Work Station. We also received new materials for our classroom--4 brand new Leap Pads with books! It is the new favorite center!
During our math time, we have been using our math mats to work on basic addition and subtraction--starting with 10 cubes and adding or taking them away, then counting how many we now have. We have also been using some new manipulatives to sort into categories (ie: color, wheels, no wheels, wings, no wings, floats, doesn’t float, etc.)
I am collecting e-mail addresses from parents. If you are not on my e-mail list and would like to be, please e-mail me at the address below so that you can be added to my list! :) I will be posting new information to our classroom blog as well: www.poindexterpress.blogspot.com
Have a wonderful weekend!
Kristen Poindexter