Weekly Highlights: January 25-29

Wednesday, January 27th, 2010

Check out what’s happening in the TWLS classrooms this week. Here are highlights from our excellent teachers.

News from the Classroom:
In Sarah Trout’s class we continued our bear theme.  We bounced, jumped, ran, scooted, and balanced to find our letters or words to match to the other.  We concentrated on writing letters, whole words, and our names.  Not only that, but one of the Sonday groups has progressed to beginning blends like sm, st, sp, sn, and others.

For our week’s arts project, we made a bear by listening to my oral directions while practicing prepositional phrases.

In Sue  McCrary’s class on Life Skills, we have been working on calendar skills.  The older students are working on understanding a variety of different schedules & figuring out how to properly read them.

In Kim Gallant’s class, the theme this week is “Under the Sea”.  We will be incorporating academic and functional skills such as counting by 5’s, money identification, time telling, and addition into hands-on/minds-on sensory activities.  Next week, we will be learning about Groundhog Day.

Katherine Taylor thanks all the parents who have come to the conferences.  It is always a fun opportunity to share the stories of success for these awesome students.  They have come so far this year in reading and it is wonderful to observe the confidence we see. 

Ideas for Activities at Home:
Sarah Trout suggests  - I think it would be nice to sit down with your child this week and watch them practice their keyboarding or spelling words.

Kim Gallant’s Sensory Learning Tip - The next time your child is struggling to learn his/her spelling words, try spraying some shaving cream on a cookie sheet, mirror, or table top.  Use your pointer finger as a pencil.  Start by drawing a few pictures to go along with the spelling words.  When it is time to write the words, simply smooth over the cream and you have a fresh slate.  To spice things up, you can add some glitter or food coloring to the mix.  This tactile approach to learning helps kids perceive the word with as many senses as possible, plus makes it so much fun that they’ll probably be excited to practice.
Katherine Taylor suggests - Ask your kids questions about the months of the year or how we use schedules in our daily lives.

Up Next:
From Sarah Trout -  The next theme will focus around hearts and love.  If anyone has anything useful for this theme, please feel free to bring it in or share ideas.

From Sue McCrary - I’m very excited to begin cooking with our students.  The curriculum we use is fantastic because it breaks down each step required for each recipe, using both pictures and words.  It’s very user-friendly.  After we complete our recipe, we will sit down together to enjoy and reflect.

From Katherine Taylor  - This quarter we will be talking about Health, Nutrition and Exercise.  If there are any parents or family members who would like to come in and speak on one of these topics, please get in touch with Ms. Taylor and we can work out a time for the afternoon extended learning.   Hats off to our wonderful families of TWLS!

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