Peek at My Week, Updates, and New Math Unit

Hey Guys! I finally got around to making some requested addition/changes to some of our units. The first additions are to Let’s Get Cooking. A teacher sent me an email about the peanut allergy epidemic! She has several kids in her room that can’t have peanuts, peanut products, or anything made in a factory that makes peanut products! So I ADDED a modified recipe for these four cookbooks and follow up activities. The peanut versions are still included, this is just another option. If you already have the unit, go to your “my purchases” tab on tpt and you can download the updated version.
The next change…Reader’s Theater Units. When I updated these units sometime ago, I added a colored background thinking it made it more attractive. However, I had several teachers who expressed a concern about the backgrounds making the text too hard to read. So…I have added a script without the colored background. The colored background script is still included, if you prefer. If you already have the unit, go to your “my purchases” tab on tpt and you can download the updated version.
Last week I posted the Pets Math and Literacy Activities Unit. I mentioned in the post that I was going to add some nonfiction information this week. So here it is….I have added two nonfiction texts—one of them is simple enough for early readers. We used these this week in Megan’s room and her kids did great. We worked on labels, photographs, bold text and cutaways. I can’t believe how many features of non fiction text we already have under our belt.  We made the tree map about dogs to record our learning. We practiced reading sight words and looking at the picture and first letter to figure out a word. WOW! 30 days in and her kids are doing great! If you already have the unit, go to your “my purchases” tab on tpt and you can download the updated version.

Now something new…Michele and I have finished Unit 3 for our Small Group Math Lessons. This unit focuses on teaching counting sets to 10 in a random configuration and sets to 20 in an array, circle or line.  It also works on numeral writing. Then, we move on to comparing sets for greater than and fewer than and end the unit on comparing numerals for greater than and fewer than.

When Michele and I finished up our Reader’s Workshop Units, we put them all in a bundle. BUT, this time, we are making the bundle NOW!

If you want to get the entire series, this is the cheapest it will EVER be!  You can prepay for all ten units for a 50% discount! Then, each month we will update the bundle on tpt and you will be able to download the newest unit by going to your “my purchases” tab. Each month, the discount will decrease, until at the units have been added. It will then be it’s full price.

UPDATE: After a few questions last night --"What about if we have already purchased Units 1 and 2"--here is what we decided to do. We have made a second MEGA bundle that contains units 3-10 ONLY. So if you have already purchased Units 1 and 2 you will want to get that bundle. It is also 50% off of the cost of those 8 units. We will make that option available for a limited time to give everyone a chance to get it that previously purchased units 1 and 2.  You can get the bundle with units 3-10 ONLY here.... http://www.teacherspayteachers.com/Product/Small-Group-Math-DI-Easy-as-Pie-MEGABUNDLE-by-K-Adsit-M-Scannell-1446507

So now…what are we doing this week in Megan’s room….We are finishing up Pets. Next week, we will be moving on to Food!
Our morning meeting is in full force! We added our academic vocabulary this week. That was the final piece to our morning circle time!
So it looks like this:
Monday: We introduce our new sight words for the week and put them on our “parking lot”.
Tuesday: We do our “word family” of the week. At this point, it  really is all about the auditory rhyming, but many of them are picking up the phonics.
Wednesday: Unit Vocabulary. Since we started our list of pet words last week, we are adding more words to that SAME list this week.
Thursday: Book of  Lists. This gives us an opportunity to review math, science and social study standards while working on stretching out words and the sounds we hear.
Friday: Academic Vocabulary. This is where we add any new words that we have learned that week. Then, we pick a word from LAST week for our anchor chart and in-depth study.
Reader’s Workshop has us teaching our children what kinds of things they can share with a partner, and Writer’s Workshop has us reviewing all the things good writers do.
During our foundational time we are starting on vowels with our Sound Off unit. We are still doing the beginning sounds, but our kids are pretty good at those so we are using them as a center and moving to vowels for our anchor chart work.

We are using mostly items for the new Pets Unit that we just finished up for our literacy centers and our science and social studies time.

ONE MORE TO GO! Next week we will start “beefing up” our centers. Be sure and check next week to see what kinds of things we are going to ADD now that our kids have the general idea of how each center works!This will be our last week working on shapes. Next week we will move onto our Counting Unit. We have moved many of our shape activities into the “can do” part of the math workshop. We are also continuing our in-depth study of each numeral. This really has helped our kids in the past to know all about each numeral. I can’t wait to make the Pet Glyph with them! So fun!
Be sure and hop on over to my friend, DeeDee Wills to see what kinds of things others are doing this week!