What a great Monday back at school today!
We had a very busy day once again, and this week will continue to be a little crazy due to our Mclass testing schedule!
I will start testing tomorrow. We will test on counting to 100 in under a minute. Please work with your children tonight on this skill so it is fresh in their minds! Remind them not to skip any numbers!
This morning our morning work as to write 3 sentences about what you did over the weekend. It is great to see the kids be able to come up with original thoughts for their writing. They also are doing a great job using punctuation and capital letters when needed! I did not help with spelling and encouraged them to use the skills we have learned in Fundations to sound out and spell out their words. 
Following morning work we completed our morning board calender time.
Next we had Fundations! Today we discussed blends CH and SH. We really spent time discussing how different the sounds are and how we can identify a CH and SH when spelling. 
Next we had two center rotations. My reading groups did a GREAT job reading both books!
During our Language Arts time we worked on a reading comprehension sheet. The kids are doing a very good job with these and more and more are volunteering to read out loud each day which is great for confidence! 
We finished the reading comprehension sheet after lunch and had our play practice! Things are really coming together for the play!
We had math in the afternoon. We took a three minute math test and I had 18 students pass today! It is great to see so many passing each day! After the three minute math we had a calender worksheet that was very challenging but we worked through it together. I want the kids to really understand what the days of the month mean and how we can break down days and weeks and months! We had some good discussion during this time! 
We had recess outside today! What great weather!
Following recess we went back outside to do some addition and subtraction problems using sidewalk chalk! The kids enjoyed doing this and we also squeezed in some sight word spelling practice with the sidewalk chalk!
We finished our day in science where we took a nature hike in the woods and prairie  We discussed different plants, trees, and animals that we saw! I think it is great to expose the kids to nature and for them to really just walk and watch how nature works! It was a great time! 

We then came inside to do our bean observation! The seeds sprouted and we discussed why that happened! All seeds need is soil, water, sun, and air to grow! The kids brought these home today! I encourage you to keep this "experiment" going and maybe try planting one of the sprouted seeds as well as keeping one in the bag to keep growing. The kids were very excited about this and I think it may be beneficial for them to continue with their observations at home! Kids need to explore and test things on their own and this is a great way to work their observation skills!
Please work on Mclass packets this evening, review and discuss the skills being tested. Focus on counting to 100 as fast as they can tonight! Will test tomorrow so please be sure kids get a great night of sleep and a good breakfast!!!
Have a great afternoon!!
Joshua Schultz
Monday in class activities!
Mclass review!