Welcome Back!

Welcome back from what I hope was a relaxing and fun-filled break spent with family and friends! The children seemed well-rested and thrilled to get back into our routine. We have not wasted any time getting back into the swing of things and are forging ahead with new content in all areas! In literacy, we continue to practice letter formation of uppercase letters. This unit will wrap up next week and we will then begin focusing on blending sounds to read and write simple words. During math, we are spending time on subitizing. I told your children that this is a very fancy math word and to ask you if you know what it means! Subitizing is the ability to instantly recognize dot patterns (i.e., the dot patterns on dice). We will play a number of games this week to help your child practice this skill. As you play board games with dice at home, I am sure you will notice their improved ability to recognize the dot patterns, instead of counting the dots.

In preparation for our field trip to the Flynn Theatre next Monday, our theme for the next couple of weeks will be an author study of author and illustrator Tomie dePaola. We will read a number of his books (he has written and/or illustrated over 200!) and complete activities to help us understand his style and will work on reading comprehension skills, as well. On Monday, January 11th, we will travel to the Flynn to see Strega Nona performed on stage. We are very excited about our first field trip and have been enjoying this book as our story bit this week! We will also spend some time next week learning about winter, which finally decided to make an appearance here in Hinesburg!

Please enjoy the picture slideshow below of an activity we completed related to subitizing. We read the book Ten Black Dots by Donald Crews and created our own dot pictures based on what we read. Enjoy!

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