Peek At My Week-Week 3-Family Fun

This week we are starting our unit on Family, diving deeper into Reader’s and Writer’s Workshop, and developing more independence during our center times.
In the morning we have almost finished introducing everything for the carpet bag, but we still have a few things to go. Slow and steady….
Reader’s Workshop finds us having children see that we are all reader’s, just in different ways.
Writer’s Workshop time is spent introducing some of the tools that writer’s use. It is hard to not get inpatient, and rush with introducing each thing.  There are so many things I want to tell them and show them…just remember slow and steady.
Do you see a pattern here? I keep trying to remind myself to not get in too big of a hurry.There is plenty of time to teach everything. At the beginning it is most important for me to set those routines and procedures, have everyone understand how to do things independently, and get the schedule going.
During our foundational skills time, I am playing some games that will become “staple” games in that we will use the same format, just change the clip art and the standard during the year. I am also introducing one of the music books. These books will be added to our music center.
Here’s how:

• I purchased the song from Shari Sloane. It is on her Get Ready! CD You can get it from her website www.kidscount1234.com or you can find her on itunes. 
• I made the little music book to go with the song. (I did get her permission )
• I took a blank CD and burned just this one song on the CD.
• I purchased some sticky back CD pockets from Office Depot.
• Now, stick the CD pocket onto the back of the book and insert the CD.
• Kids can now put the CD into the player all by themselves!

Starting this week, we only have our play centers opened during free choice last thing of the day. So now we are going to using the spreadsheet that you see. You can find a copy of it below if you want to see a larger copy. I have blacked out the ones that we haven’t introduced yet.


We are starting our Unit on Shapes in Math. We waited a few weeks to start a unit so that we could introduce some of the basic games that we want the kids to be able to do in the “can do” tubs and the “have to” tubs. These activities have to be ones that the kids can do on their own with just a sample.
During our large group time, we will make a chart for a different shape each day. While I am making the big chart, the kids can also make their little books (not in the picture, but are included in the unit).
We are also starting our first Small Group DI Unit. I am super excited to use these. Megan is too! She is so excited that we have laid out what to do with each group. Not only can she do it, but it is something she can hand to another adult and they can easily follow along with what to do using the scripted lessons.
You can download your own copy of the peek at my week here.

Be sure and head over to Deedee's blog and see what others are doing this week.