Newsletter for the week of September 19th, 2008

Dear Families,
We have had so much learning going on this week during our Apple Week! Monday, we looked at all the apples and sorted them by color. We then graphed them by color. After making a "real graph" with the apples, we took that information and put it into a "picture graph". We talked about what makes a real graph different from a picture graph (real items vs. picture representations) and what a good title would be for our graph. We also discussed which kind of apples had the most and the least. We read a Big Book called "Apples" and first took a picture walk through it--looking at the pictures to gather information. I then read the story to the children. We also learned a apple poem called, "Apple Happy". Tuesday, we put an apple in one side of the double balance scales and each took turns estimating how many 1 inch cubes it would take to make the scales balance. We posted the list of our estimates outside of our door so you can have a look. While we were doing that, Mrs. Groote was slicing apples for us to taste. We tasted red and green apples and then chose our favorite. We wrote our choices on a graph and found out that more boys and girls liked the taste of red apples than green apples. During our Shared Reading time, we again read "Apples", but this time we looked for seasonal words. I asked the children to name the seasons and we wrote them on index cards. As we saw them in the book, we used highlighter tape and highlighted them. The Big Book and the cards will go into our Big Book Work Station so the children can practice finding these words as well. Wednesday, we looked back at our apple tasting graph and wrote about the results. The children also came up with the title of the graph, "What apple do you like best?". We echo read, "Apples". I read the sentence first and the children repeated it to me. Thursday, we made "Apple Happy" books. The children each read to either me or Mrs. Groote. We then used our hand eye coordination skills to glue on paper pattern blocks (one of our math tools) to an apple outline. Friday, we graphed how many of each shape we used to create our apples. We also predicted whether our apples would sink or float. Then, we tested our ideas in a large tub of water. You can see pictures of our week here: http://www.kpoindexter.wordpress.com
Your children did an amazing job this week! Our Literacy Stations are running better than ever and we are starting to add various activities to keep the stations interesting.
Next week, we will begin learning about Pumpkins and will continue to do so on and off through the middle of October. We will also take a quick look at farms before we take our trip to Stuckey Farm on October 6th. If you have not turned in your child's money for that trip, please do so soon so that we can make sure everyone is able to attend! :)
Have a wonderful weekend!
Kristen Poindexter
http://www.poindexterpress.blogspot.com