This week in Aspen classroom we learned all about the Life Cycle Of A Pumpkin! Due to our amazing field trip to Ramseyer’s Pumpkin Patch last week Aspen was able to study the Life Cycle Of A Pumpkin up close! We had the amazing opportunity to have a first hand experience seeing and touching the Pumpkin Life Cycle stages on our special botany tray! Aspen also engaged in a variety of pumpkin themed Practical Life such as: using the tongs to transfer pumpkins, cutting out pumpkins, spooning pumpkin seeds, tracing pumpkin number papers, and even did a fun create your own jack-o-lantern bulletin board craft. The Aspen students have been focusing on how to write their numbers properly and have had so much fun practicing! Aspen then watched a video How They Grow: Pumpkins and learned more interesting pumpkin facts. Did you know that the largest pumpkin ever grown weighed over 3,000 pounds! We also had lots of fun using tweezers to remove sunflower seeds from a sunflower. It sure was a busy pumpkin filled week in Aspen!
In Readers Workshop, the Cardinals have been working on phonological awareness focusing on sight words and phonograms. The Cardinals have successfully mastered the red and orange Sight Word boxes and have been learning about Ch, Sh, and Th words. As we practiced reading words with these phonograms we practiced reading them in sentences containing sight words while completing follow-up work activities. The Chickadees continued their phonemic awareness activities practicing segmenting phonetic words. They continued explore the concept of Sight Words practicing reading sight words in the red box. The Chickadees also received a Pumpkin Life Cycle book containing the sight words we have been practicing. At the same time, these booklets also provided the opportunity for the Chickadees to gain confidence sounding out large words while practicing identifying their colors in print! Both groups have been working so hard and continue to challenge themselves weekly with new concepts!
In Writers Workshop both groups have completed writing their lists and have begun to practice writing their sequencing stories. In these stories they practice their writing skills while explaining how to do something ( for example, making a peanut butter and jelly sandwich or riding a bike)! Both groups have continued to work hard to refine their handwriting skills!
Next week our group lesson topic will be Color! We are going to learn all about the Primary and Secondary Colors, learn about shade and tint, explore the color wheel, and engage in a special color mixing experiment!
Using the tongs to transfer pumpkins. Note the amazing pumpkin life cycle botany tray in the background!
Removing seeds from a Sunflower!
Practicing segmenting words with the CVC Word boxes!
Fun with the Trinomial Cube!