This Week in Alpha
What a great week to practice flexibility! We had no school on Monday, Ms. Kim taught on Tuesday, and Ms. Alexa and Ms. Alyssa were in the classroom for the rest of the week. The students got to guide their substitutes in finding supplies, learning classroom procedures, and following the classroom schedule. We are super happy to report that they have their Alpha routines down pat!
In Language Arts, we reviewed vowels and consonants, and we fixed our very jumbled classroom alphabet by rearranging the letters into the correct order. The students practiced writing the letters s and r, and identified words that start with those letters. We discovered that we are really great at figuring out how many syllables are in words.
Sorting words into groups by the number of syllables in them.
Finding words that start with letter sounds.
Practicing writing the letter “s” in our letter journals.
After reading the book, Ruthie and the (Not So) Teenie Tiny Lie, we drew pictures of how Ruthie looked on the outside, while discussing how she was feeling on the inside. Authors often tell stories that remind us of our own experiences, so making personal connections is a big part of Alpha learning (while we don’t like to admit it, as it turns out, many of us have told teenie tiny lies!).
Working in our language arts groups to draw Ruthie.
In Math this week, we found lots and lots of examples of symmetry in the school and in nature. We played a symmetry game by taking turns with a partner to place shapes onto a design, making sure that we maintained symmetry between the two sides of the design. We also folded paper with paint on it to make symmetry paintings!
Playing the symmetry game.
Butterflies and leaves with symmetry.
In Theme this week, we continued our discussion of community. We talked about the many roles of people within a community and found out that we need a lot of helpers to keep a community thriving. Police officers, plumbers, teachers, grocers, doctors, librarians… the list goes on and on. We were introduced to our Peeps this week. Each student gave their Peep an identity and assigned them a special job. We created clothing for them and the Peeps at each table got together to make a village. We even created maps of our villages.
Making clothing for our new Peeps.
Happy Birthday, Josephine!