Ss Week!

Happy Friday!  It sure was a short week, but it was full of activities and fun!  Ss is an easy sound to make, but a little tougher to write!  Feel free to have your children make Ss out of play-doh, yarn, Wikki Stix, or any other item you can think of!  

We have also been playing a word game that is fun for the kids, and very important for their brain!  I give them a word (usually a compound word), then ask them to delete a segment of the word.  For an example, let's use the word surfboard.  First I say "If I have these two parts, what word to they make?  Surf (pause) board."  Next I ask "What is surfboard without board?"  Another variation is "What is surfboard without surf?"  Hopefully they say either surf or board.  Please play this game with your child at the dinner table, in the car, or whenever you have a few extra minutes.  They really rise to the challenge!

One more academic skill you can help your child with is called inventive spelling.  When he/she completes their homework, and are trying to sound out words, let them write what he/she hears.  At this point in their development we want them to get excited about writing and to focus on the sound that they hear, and not so much all the rules to grammar, which can be very confusing and don't make sense (who ever heard of spelling phone with /ph/ instead of /f/??).  For example, yesterday we drew two pictures of words that began with Ss.  Most of the kids chose to draw a snake.  However, when I helped them sound it out, they obviously don't hear the silent e at the end of the word.  At this point, that's not important!  Most of them were able to hear the s, n, a, and k.  Great!  If they ask "is this the correct spelling?" you can feel free to tell them about the silent e rule, but for now, having them hear most of the sounds is most important.  

Okay, on to the pictures.  On Tuesday we made silly snakes that are still hanging from our ceiling.  On Wednesday we had a bit of a snow day.  We play snowman bingo, had a snowball fight (after the "fight" we looked at our snowball and yelled out the letter/number on the snowball), and ice skated on paper plates.  We had to freeze when the music told us to!  Yesterday we made a spider.  We learned that spiders are NOT insects!  Enjoy the pictures!  See you all on Monday!

One more thing to note- the conference schedule is now posted!  If the times do not work for you please let me know- we'll work something out!  Thank you!

 Making Masterpieces

 Snow Science (continuation of the water cycle)

Snowman BINGO

SNOWBALL FIGHT