Wonderful Wednesday

In Rainbow Valley we enjoyed creating and solving number stories.  This is a skill that can easily be reviewed at home. Here are some examples: I have 6 apples and my sister gave me 4 more.  How many apples do I have in all? Or Mommy gave me 14 cookies. I ate 4 cookies.  How many are left?
We also continued to review number families.  I say to the kids, "How many ways can you make 5?"  4+1, 5+0 ETC...
The children are also working on making estimates.  A simple way to practice this at home is to gather some items and ask your child to estimate how many items do you think we have?  If your child is making estimates that are too high or too low you know that they need extra practice. 
The children are having a contest in the classroom and estimating how many Easter eggs we have.  The person with the closest estimate wins a prize!  Oh the excitement! :) 


Today we read two really good stories, Now One Foot, Now The Other and The Two Of Them. We practiced making Text to Text Connections. Every student did an amazing job with this.  Some of the kids made very thoughtful connections that exhibited thinking way "outside the box."  We have many AMAZING 21st Century Thinkers and Learners in Rainbow Valley.

Text to Text Connections can be easily practiced at home.  Before your child reads to you say, "As you are reading today I want you to think about if anything that happens in this story reminds you of anything you have read before?" 
Simple prompts such as this will  really help your child to help build their ability to comprehend what they read.  Remember reading is much more than reading words on a page.