Pip Pip Pip!

Daily 5
- Word Families: "-ig" and "-ip" are welcomed to the neighborhood this week!  Ask your SKer to find/make as many as he or she can over your weekend together!
- Star Words: "are" and "here" join the list!  Both are so helpful to have nailed down, both for our reading and our writing. 
- Decodable Books 16 and 17: We've added two new books to our ranks that focus on spelling patterns that help us to stretch, chunk, blend and decode as we work on our "bigger picture" skills (below).  They'll both be coming home in next week's Friday Folder.
- Visualization: while reading a chapter each day before lunch of "Funny Frank" friends have been reclining, closing their eyes, and "seeing" the story in their brain!  This strategy builds comprehension and helps friends to think more deeply about what they are reading (or listening to being read.)
- Summarization: this new skill is a tricky one, but friends are working hard at pulling out the most important parts of a story and using them to create a "short form" or summary.
- Third Grade Buddies: Another week, another chance to read "EEKK" (elbow elbow knee knee) with our friends who know us well (and always remember to bring a great book to share that revolves around our current units - wow!)



Language
- Journals: We journaled about our eggs, and the big changes happening inside them, this week in SK!  We are focusing on editing our own week after we feel like our thoughts are complete, hunting for upper case letters that are out of place, looking to spruce up our spacing, and really thinking hard to see where one thought ends and a punctuation mark belongs.
- Printing: our friends wrote alliteration stories using the letter "D/d" and "C/c" - can you think of your own to share with your SKer?  Don't forget an upper case D/C-word, a lower case d/c-word, and action word(s) too!  Can you concoct a catchy sentence of your own creation?!  Do you dare to dig deep and delve into a delightful D piece?




Math
- Number Ordering: 8, 4, 6, 2... 14, 12, 11, 17... 81, 51, 21, 31... 63, 68, 65, 62 - we worked hard at sorting these groups into smallest to biggest with strategies like "Look at the first number... if it's the same, then we need to worry only about the second number!" or "Look at the first number... if they're all different, we only need to worry about the first number!"  More simplifed... "Same, second" and "Different, first"
- Counting, counting: We continue to work toward our end-of-SK goals, counting by 1's, 2's, 5's and 10's, as well as counting backwards through the twenties, teens, and down from ten!
- Time: We offer lots of ways for friends to interact with the clock, telling time to the hour and making the clock tell the time they have in mind (using a Judy clock).  We are thinking lots about the long hand and the short hand, and what pointing to the twelve means.  Help your SKer's develop this important skill by hunting for "hand" clocks around your house or neighborhood and asking questions to help them think more about telling time (and why it's so important)!

Science
- Turning, turning: We continue to wash our hands thoroughly, gingerly turn the eggs, give them a "bath" (spritzing them with water) and keep quiet when we're nearby.  We are good mamas and daddies!
- Predicting: friends predicted the date our eggs will hatch (displayed outside our room) - won't you
- Inside the Egg: We candled our eggs (again!) and were AMAZED at the changes we observed!  Ask your SKer about the embryo, the blood vessels, and the air sac - how have they changed?  How do you know?  What did they look like, and what do they look like now?  What do you predict might happen next?  Our friends illustrated their observations and wrote about their findings.  They made predictions and are thinking carefully about our possible hatching dates!
*****Cracking Open*****: We were lucky to have two eggs that we could take a peek inside... one that we candled had shown no development last week, and one had shown only a little.  We saved the one that was growing only slightly and slowly, but when we candled again today, we were sad to find that it had not grown any more.  We decided to be scientists and learn what was going on inside both eggs.  The one that had never shown any development was tough to crack (duck eggs must have a thicker shell than chicken eggs!) and it looked just like the eggs our mom and dad bake with at home... egg white, yolk, shell and shell membrane.  Then we cracked open the duck egg that had only started to grow and WOW did we notice a difference!  The yolk had turned a milky white/yellow and spread into the egg whites, and we could sing thick stringy bits attached to a TINY embryo.  It was amazing!  We tried to guess what could have happened.  "Did it get cold?  Did it forget to get turned?  Did it get sick from another egg?  Did it die?" were all very good questions.  Ask your friends what their prediciton is, as to why four of our 13 eggs are not going to be hatching with our nine strong and healthy eggs.



Announcements/Reminders
- ABC Countdown: Check your calendar for info on what's coming up next week!  We've had such fun starting our final 26 day countdown in SK...can you believe it?!  (E is for Estimation on Monday - no need to bring anything from home!)
- Mother's Day Art Show: Don't forget!  On May 8th from 6-7 we welcome our SKers and their mamas to Mellowe's Hall to enjoy all the beautiful masterpieces and refreshments too!
- Green Meadows Field Trip: We are thrilled to be heading to Green Meadows at the end of May!  Please keep your eyes peeled for more information in the coming weeks about dress, lunches and other guidelines.