What a Busy Week!

This has felt like the longest week everrrrr. We had Y-Ties sales starting, Back-To-School Night, fall picture day, first grade fees due, testing for their reading level, and the list goes on! On top of that, I had 7 hours of meetings this week. It felt really good to be able to sleep in on this lovely Saturday morning.

In science this week, we continued learning about our 5 senses. We did a hearing and smelling game. The kids had so much fun. On the smelling game, one of the cups had garlic in it and I was cracking up seeing their reaction after they had smelt it. The faces they made were priceless! Some guessed it was stinky socks, barf, and “fart.” 

 In math, we worked on addition and subtraction number sentences. Later on this year, we will work on work problems using addition and subtraction. We will be comparing numbers next week.

In VLA, we have been working on our new sight words. You can see them in my pocket chart in the picture below. So far this year, we have worked on accents and colors. This is our first week learning sight words.  Eventually, we will start writing sentences using our sight words.

5 Senses, Representing Base Tens, and Starting Our Vietnamese Flashcards!

We had a great 4 day week at school. The days are becoming more consistent and the kids are getting the rules and routines down.

This week, I introduced “bilingual buddies.” Bilingual buddies means they are partners with their shoulder partner. I give each partner a different colored pencil and they are to work together to complete the assignment.  If partner A has colored pencil blue and partner B has colored pencil red…and I see a lot of blue writing on the paper, that means either partner A was being “bossy” and not letting partner B do the work or partner B was being “lazy.” The kids really loved doing this and got it down really fast. I will be switching their bilingual buddies each month so they get to work with different peers. Bilingual buddies are something that other dual-language/bilingual classes in Austin ISD implement. With English language learners in the classroom, we want them to socialize with their friends to build vocabulary. If you walk through Suzanne’s room or my room during the day, you will notice that it’s never a quiet environment. We don’t believe in the kids sitting in their seats all day long working on worksheets and being quiet. 

Every morning, our calendar person leads our number of the day. Doing this each day, it builds their fluency.  

Calendar person also leads Days of the Week.  

We worked on our 5 senses this week! We played a game on Thursday that the kids reallllly enjoyed! I had 4 bags. Each bag had something in there and the point of the game was to use our hands and guess what was in the bag without looking. After each round, the students were to predict and draw a picture. At the end, I revealed what was in each bag. The kids did a pretty good job getting the objects correct.  

We have been working on identifying colors in class since first week of school. This week, we moved forward and learned how to say “mom, older sister, and older brother.” We used our dry erase boards and did our flashcards for the first time. We also worked on the different accents in the Vietnamese language.  

TOTAL PROUD TEACHER MOMENT!!! Look at how organized and neat the kiddos have become 3 weeks into school. I really emphasize how papers in the basket needs to be turned in neat and straight and not just thrown in. Trust me, this took a lot of practice. 6 year olds can be very unorganized and messy so I try to break them out of that habit early ;)   

In Mrs. Skalaban’s class, they have been talking about being a good friend. This is Mrs. Skalaban’s class friendship flowers. So cute!   

2nd Week of School

 We got through week 2! This week in science we talked about what a scientist is and the tools they use. We used our mini magnify glasses and went outside to look at different things in nature. The kids really enjoyed walking outside and using their tools. They were to pick two things from outside and tape them in their spirals when we got back inside. As a class, we showed and shared the different things we collected from outside.

 In math, we worked on making 10 with our ten frames. The students had 10 counters, cupped them in their hands, shook shook shook, and released the counters on the table. They were to record the number of counters that landed on the yellow side and the number of counters that landed on the red side. 

 We got our first class pet this week in class. He is a little brown hedgehog named Wink. He is nocturnal so the kids have not really gotten the chance to see him. We will have him in the class for one week.

Some reminders!

*Please make sure you are signing and checking our child’s daily folder on a daily basis.

*The first grade fees is due on September 18^th. I have received almost half of the class’ fees already. This is for our class T-shirts, field trips, book exchange…

*Our Multicultural/Mid-Autmn Festival is coming up! It will be on September 25^th!

*The superintendent of AISD stopped by our classroom on the second day of school. If you didn’t see it, you can catch the video clip that was aired on the KVUE website.

*Back-To-School Night is coming up soon. It will be on September 15^th at 6.