Continuing to explore and learn through math and literacy

These last two weeks have meant lots of new exploring and learning in the classroom! We have three "explore tables" in the classroom, where students can go during Choice Time and also when they've finished their work throughout different parts of the day. Below are some pictures of explore tables we had this month:

The "Family Tree" that holds photographs of our families

What can you make with shapes?

Practicing fine motor skills using gems and tweezers on an alphabet race

Spelling our names with magnetic letters

We also play and explore with math tubs at the end of each math lesson. These rotate every month as well, and have lots of math "manipulatives" (which can be used for making patterns, sorting by color and size, and other math concepts) as well as math games.

We are continuing to explore literacy through reading books like Chicka Chicka Boom Boom.

We also learned how to do Read to Self last week, which we will do every day during literacy time. This used to be known as "Silent Sustained Reading" or "Drop Everything in Read" back when I was in school! But we've since learned that young students need to talk, sing, and use their voice to sound out words while they read, so we don't emphasize the "silent" part anymore. This week we practiced finding a private spot to read, picking out a book, and reading in one of three ways (reading the pictures, reading the words, or retelling a familiar story). We also do partner reading on Fridays, which gives kids a chance to talk about books with their peers!