Sight Word Slap!

Everyday we go over our sight words that we have learned up to this point.  I introduced a new game to my students - Sight Word Slap.  They enjoyed slapping the words as I called them out.  They are a competitive bunch!

Handwriting

Handwriting skills can really be a struggle for some of my students.  Fine motor tasks are very difficult for some more than others.  We work everyday on fine motor skills - in multiple activities.  I do have a set time in class (9:15-9:30) where four students work specifically on handwriting skills.   ( The Kindergarten students are in their regular ed classes at this time)  We use a program called Handwriting Without Tears (HWT).  Each child has a workbook.  Dalton, Landon, and Michelle do a few pages everyday.  It is really helping them.  Dalton and Landon are working on writing their letters and spacing their letters together in a word.  Michelle is working more on spacing between the words.  Kenna is working more on hand strengthening and dexterity issues.  Specific tracing is still difficult so we use materials that work more toward her goals.  HWT has great manipulatives to use for pre-writing skills.  It is awesome to see progress.  Last year my first graders were not ready for this and now they are making progress in their writing - all of them.  Woo Hoo!

Wish it wasn't blurry!  Ugh!

Great pencil grasp!  Making "K" for Kenna!

Learning about the day and night sky

This past week, we learned about the day and night sky.  One of the fun activities we did was making the phases of the moon with oreo cookies.  Fun and yummy!  I had to watch these sneaky kiddos - they really wanted to eat each phase as we made it - and who wouldn't!!!

Too funny!

Labels

We discussed "Labels" this week.  We have lots of assignments where we "label" things.  To make it a little more fun and "3-D", I decided to let the students label me.  They loved this!  They were laughing at how silly I looked.  This is a fun and crazy bunch, I tell ya! 

Apple Investigation fun!

We had fun making a real object graph with our apples, talking about how apples are different, comparing the weight of an apple slice to blocks (the whole apple was too heavy for my scale!), and measuring the height of an apple.  Loads of fun~

I love these kiddos!

We love our families!

The students did a great job telling us all about their families with their posters.